First Comes The One Who Wanders (71 page)

Approaching cautiously, Leilas searched for the dark crafters Ro had said came this way. The temple appeared to have been undisturbed for many years. Not for the first time, Leilas wondered when the people of Preterlandis had stopped honoring the crafters who'd been in the beginning. Stepping up to the doors, she studied them carefully, looking for traps. But the doors appeared to be harmless. The runes carved into the doors were words of welcome.

It had been a temple, after all, thought Leilas. Was a temple, she corrected herself. It was for people to use. Taking a breath to prepare herself, she pushed open the door and stepped inside.

She had expected to see a mirror of Crog’s and Ahnj’s temple, but her assumption had been wrong. There was no platform with a seeing stone. There wasn’t even a platform. Instead, the room seemed to focus on a circular floor in the center of the building. The floor was an intricate mosaic made from chips of wood. Light and dark pieces had been placed to form a picture of a sea dragon surrounded by sea elves playing in its wake. Seated on the sea dragon was a crafter that Leilas assumed had to be Sylph. As she studied the mosaic, she wondered if the sea dragon that had followed their ship on the trip to Crogmanland could have been sent by Sylph to protect her.

Now that she was in the temple, Leilas wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. There wasn’t a stone to activate. There wasn’t a platform leg to hide the piece of the crafter’s staff. The only similarity to the other temples was the carvings on the wall.

Hoping the carvings held the secret Leilas began to slowly circle the room, studying the reliefs. They showed Sylph moving among the people of Preterlandis, sometimes healing, often portrayed whispering to the people. But, if there was a secret hidden in the pictures, Leilas couldn’t find it.

The noise was almost indiscernible, but Leilas heard it. Her hand slipped to her axe. The wind from outside wafted into the temple. She knew she'd closed the door. Turning, she saw the dark crafters slipping into the temple. Once they knew they'd been discovered, they discarded any pretense of sneaking and rushed inside. Leilas swung her axe and ran to meet them. As the first joined her in battle, the ones behind began to chant. She recognized the spell, if she didn’t do something to counteract it, it would immobilize her. But she needed her hands to be able to deflect it. Hacking at the crafter in front of her, she knocked him to the floor then began the counter-spell. Another crafter took his stance in front of her. She rolled to her left and continued to chant. A sword crashed down next to her head, she rolled again and concentrated on her spell. Now, she wished that she'd brought Erion with her, now when it was too late. She finished the counter-spell and lunged for her axe. The crafter placed his foot on it and raised his sword to strike a fatal blow. Leilas grabbed her knife and stabbed it hard in the man’s thigh. He grunted in pain and brought his sword down. Leilas rolled to her feet. She felt the blade scrape along her back as she rolled. Not even stopping to think, she plunged the knife into his abdomen and pulled upward. The crafters in the door had begun to chant again. Leilas quickly spoke a spell of protection against magic and ran forward, axe in hand. The blade was flashing back and forth and soon there was only one crafter left standing.

Leilas held her axe at the ready, facing Garabaldi. He made no move to attack. Instead, he held his hands in the air in surrender. "I won't hurt you Chidra," he said, not moving from the door. "Unfortunately, the others didn’t feel as I do."

"What are you doing here, Garabaldi?" asked Leilas, relaxing her grip on her axe. "I thought you'd be back in Crysalis with your people."

"Unfortunately, the gaunt masters had other plans for me," said Garabaldi, sadly. "They've been instructed to find the staff and turn it over to the new master. They have determined I’m the best man or gnome for the job."

"You know you can’t retrieve the pieces of the staff," said Leilas.

"I told them that," said Garabaldi, amiably. "They weren’t inclined to listen. And once they discovered that you had visited me in Crysalis, they decided I was the best one to send to intercept you."

"Because I would trust you," finished Leilas.

"Exactly," said Garabaldi.

"Why are you telling me this?" asked Leilas.

"You'd be able to discover it on your own, I know that. Besides, I don’t necessarily have the same objectives as my superiors."

Leilas wasn’t sure what to think. Garabaldi was being honest with her, and yet he was working against her. He was the enemy, and yet he didn’t feel like the enemy. She could probe his mind, but he would know that she would try that and would do his best to misdirect her. Sighing, she began to clean her axe. Garabaldi relaxed and lowered his arms.

"I don’t trust you," said Leilas, not taking her eyes from her work.

"Nor should you, Chidra," said Garabaldi. "I told you that in Crysalis."

"What are you trying to accomplish? You know that if I don’t succeed, Preterlandis will fall. Yet, you're still working against me."

"Perhaps not all dark crafters think it would be bad if Preterlandis turned dark."

"I thought you were different," said Leilas.

Garabaldi shrugged. Leilas put her axe back on her belt. She'd changed her mind about going on without Erion. Right now, she wanted his help. She didn’t have to go far. By the time she reached the ring of trees that surrounded the temple, Erion came running through the forest.

"What do you think you are doing, my lady?" He asked, stopping when he saw Garabaldi at the door. His sword was drawn before Leilas could explain.

"Erion, no. He’s not a threat."

Erion stopped but didn’t lower his sword. "Do you know this creature?"

"This is Master Garabaldi of the School of Land. I met him in Crysalis. He came with his friends to stop us."

"I thought you said he wasn’t a threat."

"I didn’t say he wasn’t the enemy," said Leilas, sadly.

"What are you going to do with him?" asked Erion.

Leilas looked in Garabaldi’s direction. She'd been mulling over that same question. What did she do with the gnome master? If she let him go, he would go back to doing everything in his power to thwart her plan. If she kept him with her, she'd have to worry that he was betraying them wherever they went. She didn’t think that she could kill him in cold blood, no matter how much a threat his presence was to her.

She looked at Erion and shrugged. "I haven’t decided yet."

Erion was looking around the temple. His eyes rested on the dead crafters, then took in the temple. "This isn’t like the last temple." He said, finally.

"What are you going to do with this lot?"

"Send them off properly," said Leilas, with a sigh. She'd been sending a lot of people off to the next world lately.

"They wouldn’t do the same for you," said Erion, rolling up his sleeves.

When they'd gathered the wood and bodies, Leilas left Garabaldi to perform the ritual, while she went back inside with Erion.

"Do you trust him not to run off and tell his friends where we are?" asked Erion.

"They aren't nearby. Even if he does tell others where we are, it will take them a little while to get to us. Hopefully, we'll be gone by then."

"You plan to leave him here?"

"I don’t know what to do with him. If we leave him, he'll be our shadow. If we take him, he'll most likely betray us. I suppose we could use that to our advantage, when the time is right."

"Better the enemy you know," said Erion.

"Something like that," agreed Leilas. She didn’t bother to mention that Garabaldi had been her teacher of sorts in Crysalis.

"Do you know what we're looking for in this place?" asked Erion, having settled the problem of Garabaldi.

"I was expecting something similar to the last two temples," confessed Leilas. "There isn’t a platform or a stone." She heaved a sigh. "Your guess is as good as mine."

They began tapping the walls, looking for a secret entrance to another room, but ended up standing next to each other near the mosaic of the dragon.

"This seems to be the focal point of the room," said Erion, looking down at the sea dragon. "Maybe if you stand on it, or do something it will react like the seer stone."

"I walked all over it earlier," said Leilas. "So, obviously I’m not the trigger. And the rest is just inlaid wood."

"Except the eye," said Erion, taking a closer look at the circle of wood in the center of the room.

Leilas came to look at the eye. Rather than being made of wood, it was made of stone and rose from the floor by about an inch. Leilas pushed on in, but it didn’t move. Deciding there was nothing there to find, Leilas rose and turned. Her foot landed on the eye of the dragon and this time, she felt the stone give. To her surprise, a section of the dragon’s scales popped up to reveal a ladder to a lower floor. From the hole, there was a definite smell of salt water. Leilas looked up in surprise. "We are miles away from the ocean," she said, puzzled.

"This is the temple of the Sea crafter," said Erion, as surprised as she was.

"If there was a route to the sea from here, it would explain why the temple is here, instead of by the sea," said Leilas.

"I was wondering about that," said Erion. "Garabaldi," he called loudly. "Time to go."

The gnome entered the temple, brushing dust and ash from his clothing. He stopped to pick up his pack and his weapon. Erion took the weapon from him and then indicated that he should go first into the hole in the floor.

"So I'm to be the prisoner, I see," he said, as he began to descend the ladder.

"Until you give us reason why you shouldn’t be," said Erion, gruffly.

"No, no, very wise of you, I think," replied Garabaldi from the darkness. "Nothing here," he said. They could hear him moving around on the floor below.

"Me next," said Erion, "just in case there are more crafters waiting below."

Leilas nodded and held the door while Erion climbed nimbly down the ladder. He landed lightly.

"All clear," he said. Leilas started down the ladder, pulling the door closed behind her. They didn’t need to give away any secrets to their enemies.

They'd descended into what appeared to be a storeroom. There were barrels stacked along the west and south walls. The north and east walls had doors. Other than the sound of mice scurrying, there was only the sound of water lapping against something. But there was no water in this room.

"Let’s go find our sea," said Leilas, heading for the east door. If they were searching for sea water it would come from the direction of the sea. Once they stepped through the door, the smell of salt water was stronger. The door led to a short hallway that opened up into a large room that appeared to be a docking area for sailing vessels. The roof was higher than she could see, although Garabaldi made appreciative noises about the architecture. In this room was a channel filled with water, the wooden floor serving as a loading platform. There was a vessel at the dock, but there were no people in the room or on the ship. Leilas gave Erion a puzzled look and moved cautiously toward the ship.

A gangplank spanned the gap between the ship and the dock. Leilas took a look around the room. But seeing nothing that appeared to be a clue to the staff and seeing no other doors, she stepped on the gangplank and boarded the vessel. Erion prodded Garabaldi to follow and then boarded the ship, as well.

As soon as they were aboard, the gangplank withdrew and the ship began to move. Leilas thought about jumping overboard, and regaining the dock. She could see that Erion had similar ideas, but they'd moved quickly away from the docking area, and she knew that what they were looking for was not in the temple. Stepping back from the railing, she took a deep breath and walked to the front of the ship to peer into the blackness of the channel.

Garabaldi was standing near the railing, reading some runes that had been carved into the brass that lined the rails. "There is but one destination from here," he read aloud. "What you find when you reach your journey’s end depends on you."

"That makes it so much clearer," said Leilas, brushing back the strands of hair that had escaped her braid.

"The one destination is the sea," remarked Garabaldi. "The other half must mean you have a choice to make when you reach the ocean."

"What choice would that be, gnome?" asked Erion.

"That part is harder, isn’t it?" replied Garabaldi. "Perhaps it'll be clearer once we get there."

Leilas ground her teeth in frustration. She was tired and time was against them. Yet, it appeared the four crafters had made finding the last two pieces of the staff a game. They were moving through a carved, water-filled tunnel. There didn’t appear to be any reason for them to be moving, and yet they were slipping quickly through the channel.

"You should get some rest," Erion told her. "I’ll watch our friend here. It doesn’t look like we're going to run into trouble until we get out of this tunnel."

Leilas nodded, looking in Garabaldi’s direction. She had more questions to ask him, but they could wait until later.

Erion looked longingly at the island of Seal Haven as they emerged from the channel just a few miles north of the small island. Seals were already playing nearby and investigating the unusual ship. Leilas had seen a few swim off in the direction of the island and wondered if they were warning someone of their presence. A frown pulled at her lips as she watched Erion. It was just a few days until the summer solstice. She knew Erion was homesick and heart-broken to be missing the summer festival.