Unwilling to make a scene, Penna waits for the proper moment to drag her nephew over the coals. She keeps Nasir out of this, though. It is not her brother’s fault that Tric gives no thought to the collateral damage he could cause. No, that is a trait Tric inherited from Anador. After enough of the dinner has been eaten, Penna stands and announces that she and Tric are going to go check on the dessert course. “The servants might need Tric’s help carrying the dishes,” she explains. As soon as they are in the next room with the door shut behind them, Penna hisses, “What was that? What is this talk of raising Anador from the dead?”
Voice low, Tric replies, “We’re pretty sure his corpse with his circlet—purple amethyst and such—is in Mal-Ravanal’s stronghold. And when I say corpse, I mean that it might be shambling around.” Penna’s eyes go wide, and Tric nods. “Yup,” he says, unsettled himself. For once, he lets some vulnerability show, opening up to his aunt. “It was kind of uncomfortable not to know who my parents were the whole time I was growing up,” he tells the woman responsible for all the secrecy. “I understand you had reasons for doing it, but I’ve found out now. I even met my human mother. I think you and her would actually get along, oddly enough…”
Tric wrenches himself back to the topical parent. “But you know, talking with Grandma and Grandpa, talking with Nasir, hearing all these things about Anador… He seemed like such a great person. It would have been great to know him. I understand he died.” Tric looks down at the floor, trying to collect himself. Finally he throws up his hands, and with a sniffle demands, “What am I supposed to do? I was denied having a parent—well, I mean, Nasir did the best job he possibly could, given the situation he was put in. But what do you want me to do, Aunt Penna? You want me to pretend this person didn’t exist when he did, and oh, by the way, I might have to face down his corpse animated by foul, disgusting magics? Is that what I’m supposed to do? I don’t know!” Tears roll down Tric’s cheeks. “What am I supposed to do, Aunt Penna? Or am I just supposed to be a water dowser, like the rest of your side of the family?”
Tric’s words sting at Penna, who has spent her whole life striving to shake off her mundane water dowser background. But she can relate to his confusion, and his pleas for guidance resonate with her. Thirty years ago, she was in that same position, unsure of how to handle the problems surrounding Anador’s death. She made the best decisions that she could at that time, and Tric is now struggling to do the same. As part of the council, Penna is privy to the plans being made to investigate the news of orcs and undead in the east that Tric and Hepalonia brought home from their travels. “What are you supposed to do? You’re supposed to stay home, not endanger the forest. You are dragging the forest farther out of its bounds than it needs to go,” she admonishes him.
“We’re a more important forest than you think,” Tric retorts.
Penna bats aside that point, whether she agrees with it or not. “Anador’s corpse is in a fortress over a week’s march that way,” she says, throwing a hand vaguely eastward. “And you have to go confront it? Why? Why must you go and look for trouble? You’ve always been a meddler, Tric, but this time, you’re dragging the whole forest with you. And Wesmere and your grandparents!”
Tric nods. “And the saurians. And the dwarves. And several human armies.”
“I don’t care about those. I care about the elves and about my family.”
“Right. And your daughter—”
“Both my daughters! Quaemilya is a sorceress; she’s going with those forces. And even my husband is going to go. There is no reason Thrandolil should need to go, and yet his expertise is being called into play. He actually petitioned the council in order to go along! You’re jeopardizing my forest, you’re jeopardizing my family. And for what? You should have stayed in your place.”
Tric bristles at this. Anador’s legacy is a real mixed bag, one that Tric needs to not just live up to, but also go beyond. This is not a confrontation he can just stay home hiding from. But there are even larger forces at play here, particularly with this news that Thrandolil actively requested to go with the troops. Tric decides the time has come to take Penna fully into his confidence. Barely above a whisper, and far more formal than he normally is, he admits, “I’m concerned that Uncle Thrandolil might be planning something. I don’t know if you’ve looked in his office recently?” Penna shakes her head. Thrandolil’s office is his own private space, and she does not go in there. “He’s got a tripod of magical devices,” Tric tells her. “Some of them necromantic. These are some of the things that he asked Hepalonia and I to get for him. And there’s a spot on the tripod for a circlet exactly the size and shape of Anador’s. So… what would you think he’s going to do? Because you’re right—there isn’t really a reason for him to go gallivanting on this adventure.”
“That’s impossible,” Penna stutters out. “He doesn’t even know that—”
“Look, I’m just laying out the facts,” Tric says. “He asked us to get a necromantic control crystal. He really wanted to speak to our wandering sage friend, a human mage who he hoped would have some knowledge of these things. He’s constructed this device and specifically asked to go on this mission, where there are going to be undead.”
“And how do you know where Anador’s corpse is?” Penna asks.
“Because I talked to someone who saw it,” Tric says wearily. “He described the circlet and the corpse it was on. Unless… was that one of a set of circlets?”
“No,” Penna says with a slow shake of the head. “Anador’s circlet was distinctive.”
“And his body was never recovered thirtysome years ago, right?”
“No, they fell back from that position.”
“And the undead continued marching, did they not? That was the beginning of the war. The lich in charge was Mal-Ravanal, and it is his fortress in question. We’re going to blow up that fortress. I don’t think it is safe for Uncle Thrandolil to get that circlet or to see Anador’s corpse. I have to make sure that’s part of the destruction. That’s why I can’t just stay at home in the forest.”
“Well, when framed that way, that destruction does sound like a good idea,” Penna admits. Tric goes up a few notches in her opinion. This whole plan is much more thought out than she had expected from him.
“That’s what Hepalonia and I are putting together a special team for, to blow up the fortress and make sure that Anador’s corpse is buried in it,” Tric continues. “And to make sure that Uncle Thrandolil does not get to it because I’m not a hundred percent sure what he would do. And I can’t ask him about it because I understand why we’re not supposed to raise this topic—I apologize again for doing that at dinner.”
“Hmm…” Penna grows pensive, wondering whether there is a safe way for her to ask her husband about this. “But regardless of what Thrandolil is planning, you’ve put my family in danger. You need to protect them. You need to bring Thrandolil back from this in one piece.”
“Um, just one clarifying question… What if he does try to raise his brother from the dead?”
“You’re going to stop him.” Penna’s statement sounds an awful lot like an order.
“Yes, I will do everything in my power to stop him. But what do I do if he’s too far gone?” Tric hesitates to put into words that he might need to kill his uncle. “I know it can happen to elves. I heard about Mal M’brin. Have you heard this story?”
“I do not accept that Thrandolil could possibly be so far gone as that,” Penna replies, indicating she is familiar with the tale from the not-too-distant past.
“You know how close he was to his brother,” Tric reminds her. “If he is face-to-face with that face again… I will do everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t happen. But I need your understanding in this… I’ve fought against shadow mages, those who denied they were doing necromancy. But there is no denial when it comes to this necromancy. There are those who learn about it but do not practice it and try to avoid it,” Tric says, holding out his left hand. Then he holds out his right hand and continues, “And there are those who pretend they are not doing it.” Tric separates Kachen’s experiences from the shadow mages’ in his own mind. Hefting each hand in turn, he tells Penna, “I’m worried that Thrandolil might be moving from the first category to the second.”
Tric pauses, giving his aunt time to speak, but she is clearly weighing options. Thrandolil is an elf of high standing, and she does not want her family’s reputation tainted. Tric knows he could be an easy scapegoat if things go horribly wrong, so he suggests an alternative. “He can ‘die honorably’ on the field of battle, if that is the concern. I can clarify the story that I will tell, if it comes to that. I can tell the heroic tale of how Thrandolil gave his life to set the final charge—if it comes to that. We don’t have to like it. We don’t have to like each other! But I think this is what makes sense to protect the forest, protect ourselves, and ensure our legacies.” The proposition is more pragmatic than Tric intended, but he is under a lot of strain here. “Is this agreeable?” he asks wearily.
“If it comes to that,” Penna says, echoing Tric’s rhetoric, “I will defend your actions before the council.” Tric throws his arms around her in a hug, startling Penna. The incongruity of the very transactional discussion of killing Thrandolil being now followed by an embrace throws her. But then she slowly raises her arms and awkwardly pats him on the back, offering what reassurance she can. She can see that the young elf has been put through an emotional wringer.
This hug is not so different from the few cautious ones Tric has received from his own mother. I’ll go fishing with Dad later, he thinks, wiping tears from his eyes. He’ll give me a real hug.