Almare - The White Mirror

Silence.

The valley where six thousand armed men and scattered horses stood was cloaked in a silence so thick it made breathing an effort. All was so still that not even the smallest insect dared to disturb the men, who were standing in rows straight as the horizon between sea and sky.

King Wendell sat on his night-black horse at the very front of his men with his shoulders squared and his eyes forward. The General of Cinderella’s army sat on his own horse several meters away from Wendell on the left. Similarly, the General of Rapunzel’s large army sat to his right. They all looked very grim, as though each was noiselessly praying that they were making the right decision.

As she watched, Virginia slowly realized that the terrible silence was only in her own mind. Patrick’s sense of Sight was just that: the images he was Seeing (which were being directly passed on to her) did not come with sound. It was like watching television with the mute on. But, along with that realization came another: she knew things about what she was Seeing without actually being told. She knew that the men really were being silent. She knew that there was six thousand of them. And she knew that they were waiting for something. This knowing came along with the images- it was like a part of the Sight.

Through her slightly fractured vision, Virginia could see (and knew) that Wendell was waiting for a signal from a scout who had been sent ahead twenty minutes ago. He had been dispatched to confirm the king’s suspicion that the troll camp was indeed over the next mountain pass, in the field in front of the beanstalk forest of the Third Kingdom, the same place where Wendell and the others had seen it when trying to get to the Sea. If the scout returned and said that they were not there... well, Wendell had not considered that since he didn’t see that the trolls had any reason to move the camp. But, in all likelihood, if the scout returned and reported that the camp was there, then the men would be moving in quickly for a surprise attack, as the first wave of the battle. Then they would send in the dragons.

Dragons?! As this knowledge came into her mind, Virginia’s heart leaped. Since when did Wendell and the Kingdoms have dragons on their side? That was wonderful! If they had dragons, maybe the people in Welkin wouldn’t have to intervene after all. But then another fact presented itself to her: the trolls had evil dragons on their side, as well. That burst of hope went out of her. Which was more powerful, evil dragons or good ones? She didn’t know, and neither did whatever force was telling her all these things. She just knew that Wendell’s and the Kingdom’s only real advantage now was the element of surprise. It wasn’t much at all, she knew without being told.

Wendell was beginning to get worried at what was taking the scout so long, when a figure on horseback appeared on a ridge ahead and to the right of the army. Their forms were silhouetted against the blood red sky by the setting sun. Somehow the color seemed horribly appropriate. The horse reared up on its hind legs and then started to gallop down the hillside to the valley where the entire army waited in barely contained excitement, and anguish.

It was quite a sight to see all the armies of the Kingdoms together as one. They all wore bluish gray uniforms with neat black boots and helmets. The members of different armies each wore different colored badges on their breast; green for Rupunzel, yellow for Cinderella, dark blue for Wendell. Behind them stood the relatively miniscule regiments of the Dwarves', Red Riding Hood’s, and Gretel’s Kingdoms, in purple, red, and orange, respectively. Every soldier carried a spear on his shoulder, or a sword on his belt, and a shield at his side. Or her side, Virginia noticed. There were a good amount of women fighters mixed in with the males.

As the exhausted looking scout approached Wendell, he waved to the king and nodded excitedly but without a smile. Wendell nodded back. Virginia had never seen him looking so serious and king-like. When he turned his horse around and held out his arms as though to embrace and give comfort not only to his troops, but to all of them, Virginia felt a sense of awe in seeing him this way that she had never felt before. Then he called something that Virginia could not hear to each general on his right and his left, and the entire army began to move as one.

They marched toward the hill and gradually up it in perfect unison. When the front of the moving sea of men reached a probably pre-determined point on the hillside, the army began to split up into four almost equal sections and headed off in different directions. Virginia assumed that they were going to be attacking the field by coming at it from all four sides. It was indeed something to watch, and Virginia had a great view, as the Sight showed her the images from a bird’s eye view. Yet sometimes the “camera” would zoom in on random people’s faces, and then she could tell how very afraid but still brave many of them were. But it often kept switching back to Wendell’s face, and there Virginia saw great fear, but fear that was covered by an even greater sense of selflessness for his people. That made her feel so proud of the king (whom she had just lately stopped thinking of as a dog), that if she hadn’t been almost unconscious in her real body, she would have cried.

Once the army had successfully split itself into four sections and each section was positioned at opposite sides of the field (one section had to stand in the beanstalk forest), they stood silently for one last minute. Wendell was in the section across from the forest and could best see the field. The Kingdoms’ army was hidden behind the mountain, so the trolls in the valley were still unaware of their presence. Virginia remembered the sight of that field very well. There were tents strewn about all over the place, and everyone (or everything) was mulling around in a bored manner. Trolls smacked pixies out of their faces, and then the shining little fairies came back to punish them by biting the trolls on the ear. Huge hairy Sasquash sat around near cooking fires, chewing on some unknown meats. About a dozen giants in all were standing around, their heads looming high above those of all the other monstrous animals. It was almost surreal, seeing this odd assortment of powerful creatures all living together in that small area. And it looked almost the same as it had a few days before, when Virginia and the others had suddenly stumbled upon it. In fact, it looked exactly the same. Not a tent or a fire had been moved or put out, and even the beings themselves seemed not to have moved out of the vicinity they had paced long before. The giants were standing in almost the same positions, also. All this was rather strange, Virginia thought, but dismissed it from her mind.

Wendell, who was obviously in charge of the whole army, took several deep breaths. He adjusted his sword in its scabbard and tipped his helmet further down over his eyes. Then, not really able to delay their descent onto the field any longer, he swung his arm behind him as motion to his men to follow him. The fate of many lives was contained in that one human gesture, and they all knew it. Still, nothing could now keep them from what they were about to do. One after the other, with an unheard roar, his men ran after their fearless leader and into battle.

Each of the four parts of the army came next in rapid succession. They stormed onto the field with weapons upraised and mouths open in a silent war cry. All their fear was forgotten in that single moment, and each and everyone of them was prepared to die for their Kingdom.

Nothing happened.

Yes, they ran onto the field. Yes, their swords and spears sliced through the enemy. But the enemy didn’t notice.

Virginia’s head spun with confusion, as did all the men's’. They were running straight through their opponents. A man thrust his sword into a Sasquash’s heart. The animal kept walking, and all the soldier received for his efforts was a fistful of air. A horse and rider charged toward a giant. When they reached it, spear up-raised, they didn’t stop but continued right on through until they reached the other side, and could look back and see the enormous man standing there, untouched. Even more unbelievable was when an ugly group of trolls walked directly into several soldiers and didn’t even blink an eye when they strode right through them and materialized again on the other side. Virginia knew that it wasn’t painful or uncomfortable for the men in any way: it was just as though their enemies simply were not there.

Wendell and the generals threw up their hands and shouted at the men, supposedly for them to cease the pointless fighting. Everyone froze and looked around in disbelief. Wendell could not have looked more completely incredulous. They stood like that for almost a full minute as the trolls and Sasquash walked through them, the pixies flew into their eyes, and the giants stomped on them, all with no effect whatsoever to either side. It was just beginning to sink in that they had been tricked when the first red dragons appeared over the hillside.

Virginia’s blood ran cold in her veins. Just as she had known so much else about what she was seeing, she also knew without any doubt that these dragons were some of the most evil creatures ever to crawl the soil of the Kingdoms. Their wingspan must have been fifty feet, and what huge, ugly, scaly, awful wings they were! They were colored the same blood red as the sky over the setting sun, and the center of their immense eyes was also. They had short but muscular scaly legs which ended in shockingly large sharp claws, flexing like a cat’s. Their tails stretched out behind them like long whips, slashing so fast across the air that she guessed they could have made a cracking sound. And their heads, frightfully big in proportion to their bodies, seemed to invite a horrible amount of cunning and intelligence. Foul fire escaped from their nostrils every so often in short bursts, and was also exhaled through their gaping mouths lined with razor-sharp teeth. As they closed in on the field, twenty of them in all, it seemed that nothing in any hell could scare the soldiers more.

Except that combined with what they saw next. Under the dragons’ beating wings and ugly bodies, on the ridge across the top of the hill slowly, like spilled molasses, appeared the trolls’ army. Against her will, Virginia’s vision began to close in on the faces of the vile creatures lining the crest of the hills. They were the same faces as those which were walking through the Kingdom soldiers at that very moment, but they were real. Elves and trolls, Sasquash and giants, every one of them smiling in the most nauseating way. Then Virginia saw the face of Burly the troll, now called King Burly, and his siblings Blabberwort and Bluebell. On Burly’s face was the most repulsive expression of all. It was of arrogance and total glee at his already assured victory. It would not have been so repelling if he had not been completely correct in his assumption that he was about to wipe out the Kingdoms’ last hope.

Suddenly the hologram (for Virginia’s senses had told her that was what it was) disappeared and the soldiers were left utterly alone. Bravely, like drowning men without any hope left, they steeled their shoulders and held their swords and spears high. Now, quite apart from being willing to die, everyone of them knew they were going to die. And each wanted to take some troll scum down with them.

Hardly anyone noticed when the beautiful gold dragons appeared over the rise and started to fight the red dragons in a flurry of wings and claws. A few less dragons on either side was of little concern to any of them. Even the evil dragons outnumbered the good ones now. As the first of the enemy charged down the hillside, laughing and whooping in the thrill of a battle already won, Virginia’s vision began to blur with her tears.

The two lines of armies hit each other with sickening force. The front of Wendell’s army fought courageously for several seconds, spurts of troll and Sasquash blood forming satisfying little fountains. But then the human blood ran far more than that of the other foul creatures’, as trolls forced their way through the lines of soldiers. They carelessly stabbed soldiers one after the other with bloody swords, as giants stamped out three men with one footfall. The loathsome elves tore at men’s eyes and bit the horses mercilessly until they fell with their riders still clinging to them. If the screams and groans of the men and women could have been heard, the sound would have been worse than that of any nightmare.

Just as Virginia could not stand it any more, her vision singled out a lone man on horseback in the center of the fray. She knew immediately that it was Wendell, and her heart screamed in agony. If only she could close her eyes! But no, she was forced to watch as Burly the Troll King stepped closer to the King of the Fourth Kingdom as he was thrown from his panicked horse. Then, as he struggled to get to his feet to fight again, King Wendell was stabbed in the back by the grinning troll and fell dead to the blood-stained ground.

Virginia wrenched her eyes open and fell to the floor. She screamed and sobbed until there was nothing left inside her. Wolf ran over to her and held her exhausted, limp form until she was ready to sit by herself. He handed Patrick to her, who had just woken up from his trance at the same moment she had, and didn’t seem to have a clue as to what was going on.

“I knew I shouldn’t have let you do this!” Wolf said angrily, but he didn’t look at her. Instead he glared at the Guardian and Lorelei, who were sitting and standing in the corner.

“It is done now,” the Guardian said without emotion.

But Virginia knew that it would never be done, never be over. She would relive those moments in her mind whenever she closed her eyes at night. It would be a long time before any of it was forgotten. She was only glad that Patrick was not put through it.

The Guardian slowly rose to his feet. With Lorelei’s help, he hobbled over to Virginia and lifted her chin to look into his eyes. Before she would have recoiled at the sight of his blank, white eyes, but at that moment nothing could horrify her.

“Tell us what you Saw,” he whispered. “Where did it happen?”

She took several deep breaths to calm her heart, which was still pounding wildly. “On the field, in front of the beanstalk forest. They thought they were going in for a surprise attack, but when they reached the field... it was only an illusion, a hologram. The camp wasn’t real, I guess it never had been. But then Burly had them right where he wanted them -surrounded, without escape. There were dragons, on both sides. But we were outnumbered in every way possible. There was no hope...” Her eyes wandered, unseeing. “Even Wendell was killed.”

“Stop,” Lorelei ordered. “Stop thinking of it in past tense. This is what would be occurring, if we were not going to help. Now, the most important question: When is this battle going to happen?”

Virginia reached far back into her memory of the event. All she had Seen concerning the time of the battle was that it was at evening. But then she remembered a fact that she had simply known, along with so many other bits of knowledge that had just come to her. And there was no doubt in her mind that she was right, although the answer petrified her.

“Tonight. In less than an hour.”