The Hidden Realm: Book 04 - Ennodius (16 page)

To the right of Ascilius and Elerian, out on the open plain, the old Dwarf road, which led from Ennodius to Silanus, appeared again, cutting a straight line north and south through the knee-high grass of the plains.

The wood the two companions were traveling through crept closer and closer to the road, finally swallowing it up after less than a mile. At the point where the road first entered the forest, Ascilius dismounted. Before him, a tall granite pillar had been erected on each side of the highway, each pillar topped with a stone carving of a bearded Dwarf holding a lantern in his left hand and the right hand lifted in greeting, palm outward. Thick clematis vines wound around the pillars, spreading vivid, hand sized blooms of purple and blue. Between the pillars, the road, about twenty feet wide and paved with wide flat stones carefully fitted together, led northwest into the hills, the tall oak and ash trees growing on either side of it forming a thick green roof over it with their branches.

“If we follow this road, staying out of sight under the trees, we will come to a place where we can rest in safety for the night,” said Ascilius to Elerian. “Tomorrow, screened by thick forests which will conceal us from Eboria, we can continue to follow it north through foothills. Thirty miles will bring us to the gates of Ennodius.”

“Let us go on then,” said Elerian. “The sooner we reach this shelter, the sooner we can rest.”

As Ascilius led the way onto the road, he spoke again, a distant look in his dark eyes as if he was reminiscing.

“Years ago this road would have been full of wagons either traveling out to the plains or returning,” he said quietly to Elerian. “The lanterns on the pillars were always lit and were visible far out on the plains to welcome back returning Dwarves. Those were happier times,” he sighed.

“If someone had time enough to extinguish the lanterns in order to hide the entrance to the road, it is a good sign that someone is still alive,” said Elerian, seeking to cheer up his companion.

“We will see,” replied Ascilius, his voice still glum.

Abandoning Ascilius to his melancholy mood, Elerian looked around him with interest as Enias followed Ascilius down the roadway. He felt as though they had entered a cool green tunnel, for the trees growing on both sides of the road formed a thick roof overhead with their leaves and branches. Overhead, liquid birdcalls rang through the cool green tinted air. A soft breeze, so different from the insistent wind of the plains, blew gently through the wood, rustling the leaves overhead. A short distance to his left, down in the gorge they had left behind, Elerian could hear the Catalus murmur and splash in its bed, for the river increased its flow as it ran through its narrow channel through the hills. At times, as they skirted the face of some steep hill, he was able to look down to the bottom of the gorge where the river raced through the stony channel it had cut through the hills. Elerian saw many shallow falls there where the green water foamed white as it splashed down on slick black rocks.

Having regained some of his strength, Elerian slid off Enias, walking beside Ascilius on foot. The stallion followed along behind him, occasionally resting his head companionably on Elerian’s right shoulder.

Gradually, Ascilius threw off his dark mood. He began to walk with a firmer step, muttering softly to himself.

“Most remarkable,” Elerian heard him say several times. “I never expected that we would get this far.”

Suddenly, the Dwarf stopped walking, turning toward Elerian who was also forced to stop.

“I said nothing before because I was out of sorts, but I want to thank you now for saving my life again, Elerian,” said Ascilius awkwardly, his dark eyes and craggy features displaying a mixture of earnestness and sincerity. “There are not many in the Middle Realm who would have braved the dragon to rescue me.”

“I must have someone to play tricks on,” said Elerian lightly, but his gray eyes were filled with affection for his staunch if sometimes irritable companion.

Ascilius sighed and shook his head. “Someday, you will forget yourself and actually behave seriously for a moment or two,” he said as he turned around once more and resumed walking.

“Seriousness is a quality more suited to the very old and, of course, Dwarves,” said Elerian cheerfully. “What an unexciting world it would be if we all went around with sober faces all day long. I am sure that a Dwarf city must be a very dull place, overflowing with enough gravity and solemnity to put one instantly to sleep.”

“Dwarves are not dull,” replied Ascilius haughtily without turning around. “We are a purposeful folk not given to idle, pointless pranks like some that I could name.”

“My pranks are never pointless,” replied Elerian. “They are designed to entertain me and to add a little spice to your life.”

Ascilius, stomping a little more heavily on the ground with his sturdy boots than he needed to, muttered, “I give up! You are an entirely hopeless case.”

Elerian smiled to himself. Indulging in his favorite activity of tormenting Ascilius had put him in a lighthearted mood.

 “Perhaps the worst is over,” he thought to himself as he walked quietly beside Ascilius. “The Goblins seem to be gone, and we are now undercover and quite close to Ennodius. A few more weeks may find me riding back to Tarsius carrying enough treasure to wed Anthea,” he thought hopefully to himself.

THE WAYFARER’S INN

By early evening, after maintaining a steady pace all day, Elerian and Ascilius had covered a distance of about fifteen miles. His blunt features betraying his eagerness, Ascilius now began looking ahead of him at the right side of the road, a look of expectation on his face. Suddenly, not more than a hundred feet ahead of them on their right, Elerian saw the entrance to a second road, its entrance also marked by pillars topped by lantern bearing Dwarves. About twenty feet wide, the tributary road climbed up into the hills in a northeasterly direction.

“These lanterns have also been extinguished,” thought Elerian to himself as he followed Ascilius between the pillars.

Walking side by side on the wide flagstones that formed the surface of the branch road, the two companions followed it into the hills. The road wound between enormous oak and ash trees that grew almost up to the culverts that ran on both sides of it. Elerian was beginning to wonder where the road was taking them in this dense wood when, unexpectedly, a wide courtyard covered with gray flagstones appeared through the trees. Huge oak trees grew at intervals inside of it, standing in round plots covered with thick green turf. The trees were a good distance from each other, but their branches were so long that they met overhead, forming a vast green canopy that made the courtyard seem a part of the forest around it. Elerian doubted that any part of it was visible from the air.

The far side of the courtyard ended against a sheer cliff of gray rock some hundred feet wide and eighty feet high. Set in the base of the rock face were two doorways positioned about sixty feet apart. A single, wide step led up to the door on the left, which was about six feet high and four wide. A brass knocker shaped like a hammer, at a convenient height for a Dwarf, was set in the age-darkened oak of which the door was constructed. Behind the hammer was a thick plate of brass. On the right side of the door, below the knocker, was a large brass doorknob. Above the door, a square sign made of dark oak hung from a stout iron rod. A picture of a hooded Dwarf with a pack on his back was painted on the panel in faded colors. 

On the right, the second opening was eight feet high and twelve feet wide, fronted by double doors constructed of the same dark oak as the door on the left. Brass lanterns were set in the rock on either side of both doors, but the lights in them had also been extinguished.

“This was a busy inn in the days before the dragon appeared,” said Ascilius as he walked up to the smaller door. “Traders returning to and leaving Ennodius paused here for the night to rest and eat.”

He turned the brass handle with his right hand, but the door did not budge. Apparently, it was firmly locked. Ascilius hammered on the door with the heavy brass knocker, but after the hollow echoes died away, no one came to open it.

“I do not think there is anyone here, but at least they had time to lock the door behind them,” said Ascilius to Elerian. In a commanding voice, he said, “Open,” in the Dwarf tongue. With his magical eye, Elerian saw a small golden orb of light fly from the Ascilius’s right hand. When it struck the door lock, Elerian heard the click of a lock opening. After Ascilius twisted the knob again and pushed on the door, it opened easily, revealing a passageway wide enough and tall enough to admit even Enias. The walls and floors were polished to a smooth finish, but Elerian saw at once that the layer of dust on the floor was thick and undisturbed. At another word of command from Ascilius, golden mage lights appeared in the brass bound glass lamps hung from the ceiling of the passageway.

“It appears that we are the first to enter here in some time,” said Ascilius to Elerian in a disappointed voice. “The inn was probably abandoned shortly after Eboria arrived.”

He entered the passageway followed by Elerian and Enias. The door closed on its own behind them, the lock clicking shut once more. As they made their way down the dusty hall, the only sounds were the tramp of Ascilius's leather boots and the barely audible clop of Enias's small, neat hooves on the stone floor of the passageway.

Thirty feet into the cliff face, the passageway they were following gave out into a large chamber that could only have been the main room of the tavern. The mage lights in the hallway revealed a long granite counter on one side. Heavy oak tables and benches were scattered around the other side of the room. All of the furniture was slightly smaller than it would have been in a human inn.

With a word of command, Ascilius lit the lights hanging from the ceiling on iron chains before surveying the empty room. Everything was neat and well ordered if somewhat dusty. Someone had even taken the time to push the benches under the tables.

“They had the time to clean up and to extinguish the lights before they left,” said Ascilius thoughtfully. “I do not think Eboria ever discovered this place.”

Ascilius walked behind the granite counter and disappeared into the room behind it. He returned a few moments later, a pleased expression on his rugged features.

“There are several kegs back there that are still sealed,” he said to Elerian with satisfaction, “and there is food in the store room that is still wholesome. We will eat and drink well tonight. Follow me, and I will show you where you can stable Enias. Horses usually entered the inn through the wagon doors on the right, but there is a way to reach the stables from here.”

Followed by Elerian and Enias, Ascilius walked to the far side of the room, leading the way down three wide stone steps before walking down another long passageway which angled down at a gradual incline. When the tunnel ended, Ascilius again spoke a word in Corach, and a large underground stable lit by scattered mage lights was suddenly revealed. The chamber was filled with empty stone stalls, and the air smelled musty, as if the straw scattered on the stall floors had been there for a long time.

“While you settle Enias, I will tend to our own supper,” said Ascilius to Elerian before disappearing back up the passageway.

Elerian found a pitchfork leaning on one of the squat stone pillars that supported the ceiling. While Enias watched, he used it to clean a stall. He found clean, dry straw in a storeroom at the back of the stables and scattered enough to make a thick covering on the floor of the stall he had cleaned. A stream of water that gushed out of a stone horse’s head into a deep basin provided clear water to fill the trough in the stall. After another search, Elerian found grain for Enias in one of the sealed stone storage bins in the same back room that had provided the straw. He put a generous portion in a second trough. Behind him, as if he approved of his lodgings for the night, Enias entered the stall without any prompting. With the stallion comfortably settled for the night, Elerian went back upstairs to the inn to see what Ascilius had prepared for their own supper.

In the kitchen, Ascilius had already lit a small fire in the iron cook stove, using lumps of hard coal that gave off little smoke. From past experience, Ascilius knew that the chimneys of the inn were well hidden among the trees growing on top of the cliff. There was little chance of being discovered, for any smoke that did find its way out into the open would not rise up above the canopy of the forest.

The dry, cool storerooms of the inn had provided Ascilius with smoked bacon, ham, cheese, and flour for pan bread. By the time Elerian entered the large kitchen in back of the granite counter, Ascilius had already cooked up thick slices of ham, bacon, and pan bread in the great iron skillets which he had found hanging from the ceiling. Close to his right hand was a large mug of beer, already much reduced, for Ascilius had wasted no time in tapping one of the kegs that he had discovered.

As Ascilius heaped the cooked food onto glazed white plates that sat on a small wooden table in the kitchen, Elerian sliced creamy white slices from a cheese wheel that Ascilius had brought out from the pantry. Ascilius completed his preparations by setting out eating utensils for both of them and a tankard of ale for Elerian. Armed with hearty appetites, the two companions made serious inroads on the delicious food that Ascilius had prepared.

Later, after they had eaten, they sipped wine from another keg and toasted chestnuts in a wire basket over the coals in the stove. Ascilius had found sacks of the tasty nuts in the pantry as well as some honey to dip them in. As they sat on benches before the stove and pried the sweet white meat of the nuts from their warm, crisp shells, Elerian asked, “What do you think happened to the Dwarves who ran the inn, Ascilius?”

“They likely made their way through the mountains back to the city,” replied the Dwarf. “The trees completely cover the high road through the foothills with their leaves and branches, so you can get quite close to Ennodius without being seen. We shall go that way ourselves in the morning.”

Elerian sipped his wine contentedly, pleased that they would spend another day traveling through a new forest. “Do you think the dragon has entered the city?” he asked quietly as he stared into the red coals that were all that remained of the fire Ascilius had lit in the heavy black iron stove.

“I expect that she has,” replied Ascilius. “Once they have devastated an area, a dragon will usually leave. Since this one has been hanging about Ennodius for months now, it is almost a certainty that she has forced her way into the city. Dwarf gates are proof even against a full-grown dragon when they are closed and spell locked, but if Eboria came upon the city unawares, she may have been able to force herself through the front gates before they could be fully closed. By now, she will have gathered together all of the gold, silver, and jewels that she can reach, piling it up in one of the larger chambers so that she can sleep on it. She will never abandon it, and her greatest fear will be that someone may try to steal some of it.”

“Do you think any of your people survived the attack?” asked Elerian hesitantly. He felt reluctant to bring up such a painful subject, but he was curious as to why Ascilius was so certain that there were survivors in the city after all this time had passed.

“There will have been losses” said Ascilius stoically, “but there should be many Dwarves still alive and hiding in the city out of Eboria’s. There are gates on the central ramp which will keep her confined to the first level of the city. The storerooms on the second level are always kept full, so starvation should not have been an issue, even after all the time that has passed.”

“What is your plan then for driving the dragon from the city once we reach it?” Elerian asked curiously.

Ascilius started and almost spilled his wine. “I thought I made it clear to you that I have no intention of fighting Eboria,” he said impatiently. “Only a fool or a madman would try to fight a full-grown dragon. As you have already seen for yourself, they are enormous, and they can breathe fire that will melt the best steel. Their claws can score stone, and those scales you admire so much are proof against the keenest blades. Dragons also possess great magical powers, so it is best to leave them strictly alone.

“Although they are intelligent creatures, you cannot reason with them one bit, for all of them have a very high opinion of themselves. A dragon feels that it has a right to do whatever it wishes, and when they grow large enough, they are pretty much able to do just that,” said Ascilius glumly. “When they take one of our cities, we generally salvage what treasure we can and abandon it. As I mentioned before, dragons still hold two of our cities in the north, across the Murus. The treasure the dragons steal has a soporific effect on them after a time. If they are left alone, they eventually sleep for centuries on their golden beds. The gold they steal is a small price to pay to be rid of them.”

“If you are not planning to drive the dragon away, then how do you intend to enter the city?” asked Elerian in a puzzled voice.

“Ennodius would not be a Dwarf city if it did not have several secret entrances,” said Ascilius impatiently. “While Eboria is asleep or away hunting, we will enter the city through one of them. We will then search each level. Once we have gathered all the survivors together, along with any treasure that has escaped the greedy claws of Eboria, I will lead them to Galenus where my uncle rules. After that, you may take as much treasure as you can carry and return to Tarsius. I may even come with you so that I can attend the wedding,” said Ascilius expansively.

“How will we get away from the city with the dragon patrolling the skies?” asked Elerian, pointing out an obvious flaw in Ascilius’s plan. “I would have thought your people would have left already if they could.”

“I know a way out that no one else knows about, as you will see,” said Ascilius smugly. “Once we enter the city, things will go smoothly. The most dangerous part of the undertaking was always crossing the plains, which is why I tried to persuade you not to accompany me. I should have known that you were more than a match for Eboria after all the devious pranks you played on me in the past.”

“We have also had more than our share of good fortune thus far,” said Elerian modestly.

“It has not all been luck,” said Ascilius firmly. “Luck can only carry you so far. Your magic and the strength of our arms have had more to do with getting us this far then luck has.”

Elerian rose and stretched gracefully, like a cat rising from a comfortable bed. Even though Ascilius had refused to reveal his escape route, Elerian was in a contented frame of mind now that he knew more of Ascilius’s plans. His chances of returning to Tarsius alive with enough treasure to wed Anthea appeared to have improved considerably.

“Let us rest while we can,” he said to the Dwarf. “I am looking forward to sleeping in a real bed once more.”