Rock Golems of the Tundra Wolf Queen
Chapter 2 of Azra's Tale
Being a part of the First book of Faerie and not having anything in it about celery
The tower she was in was the highest standing pillar of a long ruined castle, and stood alone on a expansive snow-covered plain.
The ceiling was very high, and it looked like she was at the top of the tower, less high was the two windows, which a wicked wind blew in from. Either way, sine the Azra couldn't fly these were not escape routes for her. The only way out of the room was the staircase which the footsteps seemed to be coming from. Thats when Azra noticed the shadow of a wolf coming up the stairs.
This made Azra very scared cause she thought a wolf was about to come eat her. Yet as the shadow moved up the stairs it appeared more and more human-like. And when the figure finally appeared at the top of the stairs it was the tundra wolf queen clad in her own wolf skin.
The tundra wolf queen was very silent and cold, and for a long moment did not say anything.
When she finally did speak it was to question Azra about her whole existence. Where she was from, what she was, what her people were like, why she was here. Many of the tundra wolf queens questions were answered with things that sounded like riddles
"If you are a bird, but cannot fly, what purpose to you have for feathers." the Queen would ask.
"When we bird-people get married we shed our feathers and make nests out of them, or clothing or magical ceremonial things" Azra would respond.
And with most questions Azra could not answer them without some frustration on both parties.
The Tundra Wolf Queen had never heard of Azra's homeland, and doubted that it could be so far away and yet a place Azra walked from. The Queen was skeptical about what Azra asserted her self to be, and assumed that she must really be a minor changeling who was pretending to be "stuck" in the glamour of a bird, which would explain why she couldn't fly. The customs of Azra's people sounded strange to the Queen, and many of the customs of the bird people were secrets, so to avoid lying Azra would tip-toe around the true answers.
All of this behaviour seemed sketchy to the Queen, but the question which made her most suspicious was the fact that Azra said she could not explain what or why she was in the tundra wolf queens land and to where and for what purpose she was traveling. Because, of course, Azra had promised the secret that she would not tell of her quest "to those who would most want to know me".
The Tundra wolf queen simply couldn't allow Azra to walk amoung her land without knowing if her intentions were of ill will to her land. The queen had also become increasingly paranoid of her neighbors in the world, especially since she had recently been up to some pretty complicated political manuvuering. The Tundra wolf queen was unlike most royalty, in that she had very few subjects. She had no command over any race and her own kind had been hunted to near extinction. Even though she was herself a powerful sorceress, the few retainers she did command were all controlled by trickery or force. If she were about to try to produce any large scale combat unit it would be nothing more than an army of wind and ice sprites. To some things up the queen was feeling vunerable.
Vunerable and cruel. And to express these feelings she decided to lock Azra in the tower until her spirit was broken enough so that her lies would be transparent and her intentions clear. The tundra wolf queen pulled out two rather small and colorful rocks and placed one on each side of Azra after wispering a growlish command to them. She then left, putting her wolf skin back on, leaving Azra with only a spine-shivering growl.
Azra was dumbfounded and scared. She didn't know if she was allowed to leave or if the rocks were gifts that the queen gave to her as a special greeting/curse in the queen's wolf. After a long while of waiting, Azra got up to look down the long staircase. However when she moved towards the opening in the floor, the rocks moved in her way, although small rocks, they still blocked her path. As she tried harder to manuver around them, the rocks grew in size and character. They were suddenly not rocks but rock golems with massive arms and hands that blocked her. Frightened and a bit frustrated she sat down, and as she did, so the golems turned back into rocks.
Now Azra understood the nature of her prison. That night Azra's imagination ran through a gammit of horrible tortures that she was sure the queen would put her through. But the only pain she had to endure that night was the peircing cold of the wind coming in through the high windows.
In the midst of her despair, Azra cried out "If I must leave this place through death then at least I will be gone from here." And went to sleep assuming that she would be frozen and dead the next morning.
However during the night, the rock golems, taking pity on the bird-girl, huddled up next to her and kept her relatively warm. After all the Wolf Queen did not give them orders to hurt Azra only to prevent her from leaving. Azra woke up astonished to see that she had been assisted by her jailors. Realizing it was the rock golems who saved her life during the night she began talking to them. She thanked them and told them that they were very nice rocks and reminded her of the rocky hills she grew up in and that there were very many friendly rocks there, and that they should go back there someday with her and meet them all.
Soon the rock golems began asking questions about Azra's home and Azra gladly told the stories of her people. All across the land wind and ice sprites and faeries, who had heard about the queens new pet, a strange girl-bird, came to the windows to investigate her. When they heard the stories being told they became more interested and stayed on the window-sill listening. This did nothing to improve the climate of tower, it soon got more and more windy and cold. But Azra continued to screach her stories over the wind and hop around acting out the adventures to keep warm.
After many of her stories had been told an retold, she asked the rock golems about their homelands and stories. There was a long silence. The rock golems explained that they were not things that kept stories, they were merely servants to the Tundra Wolf Queen.
"Well did you have a master before her" Azra asked.
"Of course, and before that another master, and before that..."
"Well, thats a story. Start with the first master or memory and go from there"
The rock golems, who never believed that they were to type to do so, started to tell the story of their life. Azra had to ask questions to keep the otherwise bland story interesting, but besides the skill of the teller, it was a epicly long tale of switching hands between jealous wizards and warlords. They would spend centuries guarding a temple or ruin, then forgot and rediscovered by someone new who would learn the nature of their geas and release them only to be made to serve a new master.
The rock golems had been in service of saintly priests and diabolical fiends, from god to peasant. They had seen half the world and seen the continents change and shift. And through all this they had never thought that they could be treated as more than a gate, a guard, or a tool. Azra was the first to treat them as an equal and so to both of them she became their first friend(discounting each other).
Weeks passed by, and soon the Tundra wolf queen returned. She was half surprised to see that Azra had survived, although sickly, living off of insects, grasses and other debrie that flew in through the window. As if she had just walked out of the room seconds ago, the tundra wolf queen returned to her questioning. Except with a stern sense of ergency and phrased assuming to know the answers.
"Do you still insist you cannot fly..."she went down the whole list of puzzling answers that the queen had doubts about, "...Do you still say to me that you are not in a glamour, And most of all will you have me believe that you Cannot tell me where or why you are going and for what purpose." By this time the tundra wolf queen's voice had risen to a thunderous growl.
Azra took a long while to respond. But once she did, she answered with clarity and resolve. "Everything that i have said to you is true and everything that is secret must still remain so from you"
With this the tundra wolf queen reached for her silver blade and rushed down on Azra with her rage. But one of the rock golems stepped in her path and took the blow intended for Azra. The rock golem was split in half and lay on the ground lifeless. The other rock golem who was shielding Azra from a possible second blow, began to speak.
"NO! Please do not destroy Azra she has told nothing but the truth and means no harm to you or your kingdom."
The Tundra wolf queen, believing that Azra had somehow enchanted the golems, responded "Okay, if you truly have these feelings for her, then you can both spend the rest of your days consumed by waves of tears at the edge of the world."
Taking them both in her mouth the Queen, as a wolf, flew through the sky to the edge of her domain, where she placed them both on a jutting rock on the edge of a cliff looking over a raging angry sea. There were storm clouds all around and above them. Waves crashed up at their ankles and rain and wind and hail pelted against them.
"This is the Sea of Endless Storms, it is where you will spend the rest of your short lives." With that the Tundra wolf queen wisphered another strange growl at the rock golem. Azra did not have to ask what this was, it was a Geas that would prevent the rock golem from leaving or letting Azra ever leave, which he would have to follow.
The Tundra wolf Queen howled with mad laughter as she bleed into the sky. ==== See also ===
— AeGeylwynd? - 03.5 May 2003
