This story is part of a series. It is recommended that you read it in order. You can find the first part in our archive here:
“What was that?” I exclaimed.
“I was receiving a message,” the Wind said plainly.
“From where? On the wind?”
“I’m not sure precisely from where, but yes, it came to me on the Wind. I am attuned to the Wind.”
“I thought you said you were the wind?”
“More accurately, I am a Conduit of the Wind. It lives and speaks through me, and sometimes I receive messages on it.”
“Your vines. Your hair. I noticed one of them split in half. Is that normal? Is that what always happens when you receive a message?”
“Yes. Once, I had only one thick vine. With each message that comes through, the vine splits more and more.” They said this with a certain mixture of inevitable sadness and pride in their voice, the most emotion they had displayed since I had first encountered them. I decided to inquire more.
“Will the vines not eventually become too thin to keep splitting off?”
“At that point, my service to the Wind will be complete.”
“And what would happen to you?”
“I will blow away.” The Wind pulled at the new vine that had formed in the ritual until they could catch the message at the end of it. “Would you like to listen to the new message with me, Dedovor?”
“Listen? Are the runes not the messages?” I asked, pointing towards the strange engraved symbols, the meanings of which still eluded me.
“Let me show you,” they said, and they blew gently into the inscription, tracing the engraving, and the runes had begun to glow light blue again. Suddenly, a voice rang out, not speaking, but drifting all around us in the air, and I breathed the message in at the same time as I had heard it.
I am the last of Old Ekhidon. If you can hear this, please find me. I am so alone. Please do not forget about me.
The sombre voice quickly faded and the Wind let go of the vine, which wrapped itself around their limbs like all the others. The voice had been full of a resigned despair. It was clear that when the message had first been spoken there had been no hope put into its words.
“Is it possible for us to send a message back?” I so desperately wanted to help this lost person, wherever they were.
“No. I can only receive messages on the Wind, not send them. Though the messenger mentioned they are from Ekhidon, which is further West. We could go there and try to find them if you’d like.”
“I’ve read of Old Ekhidon, but I never thought it real. Is it real?”
“Ekhidon is very much real. It is the proud home of the Inekhed. It is perhaps the greatest city ever built, a thriving metropolis perfectly in tune with the natural and supernatural.”
“It certainly sounds like the kind of place I should need to visit,” I said, trying to hide my excitement. Old Ekhidon had been written about in many faded history books that no scholars ever took very seriously, though I’d read them all and always wondered about the place. It was said to have been a paradise, a city built almost entirely out of plant life and fungi. Many of our most impressive technologies are said to have come from Old Ekhidon - and perhaps this is why the texts were discredited by many scholars who would have preferred to maintain the more widely accepted narrative of sheer elven excellence - and that it laid the foundations for the first great societies. Those texts, however, never told of what happened to the city, and I was always told that the ancient Wyrm Kings had destroyed it before they disappeared themselves. None of this was ever confirmed, of course, it was merely what I was told. The message certainly seemed to suggest the city was a ruin. Yet if I could prove that Ekhidon still existed, was not just a story from the past and was still the idyllic place I had read about… I could well be on the verge of one of the most amazing discoveries in our people’s history.
“I must warn you, Dedovor,” the Wind spake, interrupting my thoughts, “the journey to Ekhidon is a perilous one. We will have to cross this steppe, and I am sure I needn’t tell you we must soon be wary of the Moon Elves of Naath Ennore that roam it at night. Then, we will have to make our way through the terrible Songless Mire, sneak through the jungles of the Lizardmen flesh cults, and finally cross the accursed Crimson Plain to reach the great city.”
“Well,” I said with a wide smile, “this is finally starting to sound like a real adventure!”