The First Wizard

III - In the Shade of the Grove

"Thalon!" Griff screamed at the top of his lungs as they continued to fall from the sky.

"Focus, Griff!" Thalon yelled back, the rushing air drowning his words as he attempted to get closer to the scribe. The Sigist closed his eyes and fiercely brought his grey book closer to him. In that deafening descent, he muttered the word he had staked his soul on.

"Parhon," Griff said as a great bubble of air enclosed both him and the wizard. It halted their descent, just enough for them to survive their crash into the densely wooded terrain below. The wizard and monk grunted and yelped as they collided with the old branches of the primordial forest, the light of the sun giving way to a darker secluded green that meshed with the ancient browns of the wooden trunks the magic users broke their bones on.

"Ow!" the wizard exclaimed in great pain, as he looked up to see a wizard-shaped hole in the canopy.

His rest was cut short, however, for soon after, the monk landed flat on his chest. "My thorax . . ." He cried with a strained voice.

"I don't want to fly anymore," Griff said as he rolled over to the inviting grass.

"Well, that's a shame, Griff. I think it was your best landing yet." Thalon sat back up." My body hurts. But I think I'm good. Not my worst landing either. You alright Griff?" The wizard got up and lent a hand to his brother-in-magic.

"Yeah . . . think so." The scribe sat up and looked around. "If my geography is correct, I think we are in the Eri Forest, the domain of the Eri Tribe." He tried to get up, only to fall back again in pain.

"My knee!" the scribe yelped, and Thalon got closer to inspect it.

" It's shattered," the wizard said, looking worried.

"It's a punishment from the gods . . . I shouldn't have followed you" .

"Nonsense. A man of reason like yourself shouldn't be saying that," Thalon said as he helped Griff to a tree. "Just hold on. I'm going to see if I—" Thalon stopped as he heard the noise of a dozen arrows being notched. One of them, in the branches above.

The wizard looked up to see a human dressed in green fur vestments, the point of his arrow aimed directly at his face. "-can find help."

"I should have stayed in the monastery," the scribe admitted as he saw the approaching group of forest hunters leaving from behind the trees. Thalon, flustered, simply said, "Uh . . . we come in peace?" At once, all went dark, and the wizard felt the weight of an ancient tree branch breaking over his skull.

As Thalon fell again into a forced slumber, he heard a thump beside him, and a fading exclamation. "Oh, for god's sake, not again . . ."

"Ow!" the monk grunted as he was dropped on the dirt floor, next to the manacle-bound wizard. Thalon began to rouse. The wooden door slammed shut. A few rays of light peered from beneath it and from the cracks in the thatched walls of their new holding cell.

"You alright, Griff?" the wizard asked as he inspected his friend's knee. The chains holding him bound as he adjusted himself.

"No, my knee is still shattered, idiot." He rolled over to a more comfortable position on the plant fiber mat. "My head is spinning. Everything happened so quickly."

"Tell me about it," the wizard said as he melted the chains around his wrists and rummaged through his pockets to see what was left.

"Hey, Thalon," the monk called.

"Yeah?"

"It's just . . . I was thinking. You could have just left the monastery at any point; you could have probably overwhelmed the monks and guards.