DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) (110 page)

Sure enough, the shadowy figure was waiting for him in the mirror, and it seemed to recognize his needs immediately. When he emerged from the cellar soon after the sun climbed over the eastern horizon, Aydrian felt more confident about his ability to understand both the language and the dialect of the people of Festertool.

He spent that day in the company of many of the village leaders, being questioned again about where he had come from, this mysterious town of Tolwen, and about what had happened to his family.

Throughout it all, Aydrian remained vague and even cryptic, following their leads. After some time, and fearing that he might slip up as he became more and more tired, the young man had an idea. He put his hand in his pocket, feeling
about for the cool smooth hematite, the soul stone. He established a magical connection almost immediately, then reached out with his thoughts into the mind of one of the village leaders, a woman who customarily led the hunts out of town. Inside her thoughts, Aydrian listened carefully. She believed that he was from some town named Tolwen, and of course had no idea that
tolwen
was the elvish word for
west
. Furthermore, the woman had a picture of Tolwen Town in her head, one that Aydrian easily extracted and then repeated for the interrogating panel. The young man watched in amusement as the woman’s head nodded with satisfaction at each detail he offered.

After using the mind-searching to confirm their thoughts of him, Aydrian left the room that night in the good graces of every one of Festertool’s leaders. He had passed the test and was now accepted fully. They now put him up with Elene, who was a widow, and Kazik, who, Aydrian learned, was her only living child. Kazik was given the task of teaching the newcomer his duties—mostly simple, manual labor, like washing things in the stream and dividing the firewood among the village houses—which Kazik was delighted to do, for he was promised that once Aydrian could take over his former duties, he would assume more important chores like herding animals and fending away wolves from the outer fields.

Aydrian, too, went at his tasks eagerly, determined to settle in here and learn all that he could about these people as quickly as possible. Every dusk and every dawn, the young man went back to Oracle, and each time, the shadowy figure was waiting for him in the mirror, to teach him more and more. Within two weeks, he was speaking the language as well as the people who had grown up with it, and he had learned, as well, to use his soul stone to read the thoughts of anyone speaking to him, using them as a guide to help him understand the words.

Within two weeks after that, though, young Aydrian was beginning to get a little restless and bored.

He cleaned clothes, he cooked, and he carried wood. These were his basic chores, the ones that earned him his food and shelter. If he wanted more than that, wanted a little coin with which to buy anything from the traders’ caravans that often came through Festertool, he had to work at night for Rumpar in the tavern common room. But that was not only where Aydrian could earn money but also where he enjoyed himself the most. For there, in the evenings, with the drinking, the tales began. There Aydrian began to learn more about his heritage, about the society he had just entered and its history.

“Here now, boy, are ye meanin’ to spend the whole o’ the night standin’ there talkin’?” Rumpar said one night, as Aydrian stood transfixed near one table of boisterous men, one of whom was recounting his perilous adventures along the road during his journey to the Barbacan to enter the covenant of Avelyn.

Aydrian heard a familiar name in that story, Nightbird, and heard another name mentioned repeatedly, Jilseponie, which at that time meant nothing to him.

“He’s a puffer,” Rumpar said late that night, after all but a handful of his closest friends had left the tavern, and those few had joined him in a private back room
for some of the more expensive drink with Aydrian assigned the task of serving the group.

Far from being angry at having to remain so late, Aydrian relished the time with Rumpar’s colorful group of friends, four middle-aged men full of tales of battle and adventure. All had fought in the Demon War, so they said, and all had killed many goblins. The room itself was a testament to that war, decked with strange souvenirs, including a jagged dagger, a small, seemingly misshapen helm, and a meticulously maintained sword hanging over the mantel.

“Old Rumpar, he saw the most fighting,” one of the others said to Aydrian. “Fought in the King’s army he did, the Kingsmen.”

“Bah, but they should’ve put him in the Allhearts!” another chimed in.

Rumpar snorted at that and settled back more deeply in his chair. Aydrian studied him closely, scrutinized the look in his eyes, and discerned somehow, through some instinct that he didn’t quite understand, that there might be more bluster than truth to this tale.

“I did what was demanded, for country and Crown,” Rumpar said modestly. “Little pride I’m takin’ in havin’ to fight the beasts, or in the many I killed.”

Every word of that last sentence was a lie, Aydrian realized. The man puffed with pride, that much was obvious from his tone, his expression, and from the gleam in his eyes. Also, the condition of the sword marked it as Rumpar’s most prized possession, with not a hint of rust about it.

“Goblin blood stained that blade,” Rumpar said solemnly, apparently noticing Aydrian’s interest in it. “Aye, and that blood o’ them powrie dwarfs, too.”

Despite the fact that he didn’t believe Rumpar, Aydrian found himself transfixed by the image of the sword and by his own envisioning of its gleaming blade slashing in the morning light, driving across the chest of some horrid monster, spraying the red bloody mist as it cut. It was no elven blade, certainly, much cruder and ill-fashioned. But it held the young man’s interest. Aydrian had survived his time in the wilderness after he had left Andur’Blough Inninness by using his wits, his ability to hide, and on the two occasions it had been necessary, his magical gemstones. Despite the overwhelming power of those gemstones, something about the sword—this sword, any sword—touched Aydrian at a deeper level. The gemstone power was a gift, one that set him above his potential enemies, but mastery of a sword was an earned power, one that matched him, muscle and thought, against an enemy.

Hardly thinking of the movement, Aydrian found his hand drifting toward the hilt of the blade.

“Hear now! Don’t ye be touching it!” Rumpar yelled at him, breaking his trance. He recoiled immediately, his hand coming back to his side. He turned to face the man.

“Probably hurt hisself,” another man said with a chuckle.

“And get yer finger marks all over the blade,” Rumpar added.

Aydrian held back his smirk—if only they knew! This was not the time to push
this issue, he recognized, and so he stepped away from the mantel obediently. He went about his duties for the rest of the night. Though the men all indulged a bit too much in drink and he believed that he could likely take down the sword and study it without being noticed, Aydrian did not. He exercised some of the patience that the Touel’alfar had taught him, realizing that he would soon enough find a better opportunity to handle the blade.

Rumpar and his close friends met again a few nights later, and then again soon after, and each time, Aydrian was asked to attend them. That confirmed to him that he had chosen right in exercising patience, in not taking any chances of angering Rumpar. In those subsequent gatherings, he kept away from the sword, though he glanced at it strategically, to get Rumpar and his buddies talking about the Demon War, and at the same time gleaning more information about his human heritage, about the folk of the region, and even about his legendary father from the tales.

Settling into the routines of the village fully, his command of the language grew daily. Another couple of weeks slipped past before Festertool and Aydrian faced their first real crisis. It wasn’t much of a threat, really, starting merely as a report from some children who had gone out fishing that the river was running very low.

For Aydrian, who knew so well the ways of nature, it wasn’t much of a mystery. The rain had been steady over the last few weeks, and on his journey to Festertool, he had seen the snow-capped mountains. Eliminating drought from the equation made it obvious to him why the stream was running thin.

He went out even as the villagers began discussing the issue, backtracking the stream to the expected beaver dam. Two strikes of lightning from his graphite had the river running again, and soon after, he returned to Festertool with two beaver pelts in hand, even as the first scouting party was heading out for the stream.

It was Aydrian’s first taste of applause from his own people, and though it was for a rather minor feat, and certainly nothing heroic, he found that he enjoyed the attention immensely.

So much so that, as all talk of his exploits fast faded over the next couple of days, Aydrian found himself searching for some other way to bring his name back to the forefront.

He was in the back room with Rumpar and his friends a few nights later, the older men indulging in drink and Aydrian sitting quietly and listening again to their overblown tales of wartime heroics. His thoughts drifted out of the conversation, going to the sword, and then, soon enough, he found himself drifting toward the sword physically as well. This time no one noticed as Aydrian clasped the hilt and lifted the weapon from its perch, bringing it easily down in front of him.

“Hear now!” Rumpar called a moment later.

“Don’t hurt yerself with it, boy,” another man said with a chuckle.

“Ye put it back!” Rumpar demanded, his tone far different from that of the other, amused man.

“I was just testing its balance,” Aydrian tried to explain.

“Bah, what’re ye knowing about such things?” Rumpar scolded, and he walked
over and roughly pulled the sword from Aydrian, humiliating him.

Aydrian settled himself with a deep breath. “I know how to fight,” he assured Rumpar and all the others.

A couple of men exploded in laughter at that seemingly absurd proclamation.

“A bare-knuckled brawler!” one howled.

“Surely made for the Allhearts,” said another, and then even Rumpar began to laugh.

“I have done battle with finer weapons than that!” Aydrian lashed back. The room went perfectly silent in the blink of an eye, and the look that Aydrian noticed coming from Rumpar told him without doubt that he might have just put himself upon an irreversible course.

“Ye should be watching yer words more carefully, little one,” Rumpar said quietly, threateningly.

Aydrian thought that perhaps he should back off, but the boredom of the uneventful weeks and the casual dismissal of his work with the beaver dam had him itching for some action.

“But my words are the truth,” he replied evenly, not blinking. “Far better weapons. And I know how to use them, Rumpar, beyond that which you can imagine. In this town, out here on the frontier of the wild, it seems folly that such a weapon as that sword hangs unused above your mantel, when others, when I could put it to better use.”

“Could ye, now?” Rumpar asked doubtfully.

“I could,” Aydrian replied without the slightest hesitation. “Chasing bandits or orcs, or slaying dangerous animals.”

The laughter in the room began anew, with Rumpar again joining in.

“I will fight you for the sword,” Aydrian said before he could begin to consider the ramifications.

Again came that disturbing silence.

“He’d as soon part with his daughter,” one of the others said with a laugh; but that chuckle was not echoed by others, certainly not by Rumpar.

“Then I will fight you for the chance to borrow your sword,” Aydrian clarified. “If I best you, then you let me carry it and use it as necessary, and if you best me, then I will offer you my services, cutting wood, cleaning your house, whatever tasks you choose, for one month, every morning early before I go to my other duties.”

Rumpar stared at him long and hard, and Aydrian recognized that the man was going to dismiss him and his ridiculous challenge out of hand. Then the other men in the room chimed in their opinions, every one of them telling Rumpar to teach the boy a lesson.

Rumpar looked at them, at first betraying his doubts. But then, spurred by their applause, the corners of his mouth turned up in a wry smile. “One month?” the man scoffed, turning back at Aydrian. “Make it five months!”

“A year then,” Aydrian agreed. “Or five years. It matters not at all.”

The man held up his large fist. “Ye’re thinkin’ ye can match this?” he asked incredulously.

“Not the fist,” said Aydrian. “The sword. You use the sword, and I will use …” He glanced all around, his gaze at last settling on a broom leaning in the corner. “I will use this,” he announced, walking over and taking it up.

“If ye’re fighting to first blood, ye’ll have a heap of whacking to do with that!” said another man, and that brought a general laugh.

“Go on yer way, boy, afore I teach ye a lesson,” said Rumpar, waving his blade in Aydrian’s direction.

“Before you lose your reputation, you mean, warrior,” Aydrian replied, digging in his heels, embracing his decision wholeheartedly, for he realized that he was ready to change his relationship with the folk of Festertool. The impatient human side was speaking to him now, and clearly. “Take up your precious sword, and learn.”

A dramatic low “oooo” rolled through the room from Rumpar’s friends, all thoroughly enjoying the spectacle.

“Kick him good, Rumpar,” said one.

“Young upstart,” another added.

Rumpar took his sword up reverently, turning it over in one hand. He closed his eyes, and Aydrian could see that he was replaying old days of battle. Aydrian envied him those memories, the opportunity he had known, and had apparently wasted, to add his name to the list of the immortals.

He looked back at Aydrian, who stood holding the broomstick, and his gaze had altered, taking on a more serious and grim feature. “Ye’re going to get yerself hurt, boy,” he said quietly.