The Hidden Realm: Book 04 - Ennodius (7 page)

The lead figure was dressed in black leather armor and covered from head to foot in coarse black fur. Hungry yellow eyes that shone like lamps in the darkness dominated a grinning, wolf like face. Over the mutare’s broad shoulders, Anthea could see the gleaming eyes of his two companions.

As the first of the changelings lifted its powerful arms to seize her, Anthea raised her slender, razor edged sword and thrust it through the creature’s hairy throat before leaping nimbly back to evade its reaching claws. Leaping lithely to her right, she allowed the second mutare, a great, hairy, bearlike creature, to rush by her. The third mutare slowed and confronted her. He had a feral intelligence in his yellow eyes, and unlike his two companions, he had a sword in his right paw, a heavy bladed, long handled weapon which he now swept down on Anthea in a great two-handed stroke, powerful enough to cleave her in two.

In a sure, swift move, Anthea raised her own sword. The heavy clash of steel on steel shattered the silence of the night as she caught the mutare’s sword in her weapon’s curved hilt guards. Driven by the mutare’s thick muscular arms, the heavy blade carried enough force to jar a sword free of even a strong warrior’s grip, but Anthea’s slim hand and arm absorbed the blow with an unexpected strength, holding the mutare’s joined hands and sword aloft. Before the creature could break free of her sword; Anthea stepped beneath their upraised weapons, driving her long knife through the mutare’s leather armor and deep into its broad, hairy chest. Pulling knife and sword free, Anthea stepped back from the changeling, which was already dead on its feet, its heart pierced by her knife. Spinning around on her left heel, Anthea sought the mutare who had rushed by her.

A succession of loud snarls drew her attention to the path. To her dismay, she saw that the last mutare was grappling with Dacien, who lay on his back on the path with the changeling crouched over his chest. He had both his strong hands buried in the long fur which covered the creature’s neck as he strove mightily to prevent it from tearing out his throat with its long fangs. The curved black claws on the changeling’s front paws made harsh grating noises as they scraped across the steel bosses reinforcing his heavy leather tunic, seeking the soft flesh beneath the leather armor.

THE PORTAL

Dropping her sword, Anthea ran up to the struggling pair. After deftly switching her knife to her right hand, she seized the mutare by the long, coarse hair on the back of its head with her left hand, pulling its head away from Dacien’s throat before driving her knife into the back of its neck. The mutare went limp, sagging heavily against her hand. With supple strength, Anthea pulled its heavy body away from Dacien, throwing it easily to her left after withdrawing her knife. Dacien climbed shakily to his feet, seemingly uninjured. Because of the darkness and the brief nature of the battle, he was unsure of what had happened. Even the mutare who had attacked him had been little more than a blur in the darkness.

“I should have thought to bring a torch or a mage light,” he said angrily. “I cannot see a thing in this cursed darkness.” A stray gleam of light from under Anthea’s jerkin suddenly attracted Dacien’s gaze.

“What is that light, Anthea?” he asked in surprise.

Anthea reach under the unbuttoned collar of her leather jerkin, pulling out her pendant. When they were exposed to view, the diamonds covering the silver beech leaf in her hand shone with a soft, white radiance which created a small pool of dim light around them.

“Returning to the place where it lay for so long has roused its powers, I think,” mused Anthea to herself.

Dacien barely heard her, for his heart had lurched when he saw the bodies of the three mutare lying on the ground.

“Changelings wearing the dark livery of the Goblin King!” said Dacien in dismay. “They must be survivors of the Goblin army which we defeated near the Scissura. After traveling south to the mountains, they must have hidden themselves in this old ruin. We should leave here now Anthea, in case there are more of them about.”

Anthea looked toward the horses. They were stamping their feet and snorting softly at the scent of fresh blood, but their earlier panic seemed to have subsided.

“If there were more of the creatures about, the horses would scent them,” she said to Dacien. “Let me accomplish my purpose here and then we will leave.”

“We should leave now,” Dacien insisted, but Anthea had already retrieved her sword and was walking past the bodies of the mutare, toward the doorway to Dymiter’s abandoned home. Resignedly, Dacien followed her, wearing a troubled look on his face.

“You dealt with these three great creatures by yourself, Anthea, in less time than it takes to tell about it,” he said quietly. “My sister of old was never so strong or quick with sword and knife.”

 Anthea paused in the doorway to the ruin, turning to face Dacien. Her eyes, black and mysterious as some deep forest pool under the moonlight, gleamed in the soft white glow emitted by her necklace.

“I am changing,” she said quietly as she ended the illusion spell that masked her appearance so that her brother might see her true form.

Dacien started visibly at what he saw.

“She looks the same but fairer than before,” he thought to himself. “No human maid ever possessed such perfection of face and form, and what is that light which shines in her eyes?”

“What has happened to you, Anthea?” he asked quietly.

“When Elerian brought me back to life after the battle with the shape changers, he woke something in me that has slowly overshadowed my human side,” explained Anthea. “It was unintended but irreversible, and the result is still uncertain. What I may finally become, I do not know? Does that trouble you brother?”

“No matter how you change, you shall always remain my sister,” said Dacien firmly to Anthea. “Have you told father?” he asked quietly.

“Not yet,” said Anthea, resuming her disguise. “I have held back, for I do not think it will sit well with him,” she said sadly. “That is a matter for another time, however. For now, follow me now into the ruin. It will be like old times,” she said with a fond smile at her brother as she recollected old adventures they had shared between them.

Turning around, Anthea entered the ruin, walking with the light, silent tread of a hunting cat. Dacien unenthusiastically followed behind her with his sword held ready in his right hand. “What other dangers will we encounter on this ill-fated night?” he wondered to himself uneasily as he passed through the doorway.

Once he was inside the ruin, Dacien started and involuntarily clenched the hilt of his sword, for the soft white light cast by Anthea’s necklace had illuminated a huge Troll lying on the stone floor of the chamber. Light and shadow played across the great creature as Anthea moved across the room so that it appeared to move. Almost, Dacien cried out a warning, but then, he realized that this must be the Troll slain by Elerian. Cautiously, sword held ready to strike, he drew nearer to the creature, leaning over and gingerly touching the bare flesh of its right arm with his left hand. It felt hard and cold, like stone that has lain in some dark place out of the light of the sun.

 “Perhaps these creatures truly are made of stone as the old legends say,” Dacien said wonderingly to his sister. When Anthea did not reply, Dacien looked up and saw that she stood with her back to him in front an empty pedestal that stood in the center of the room, as still as if she, too, had turned to stone.

Anthea had not heard her Dacien speak. While her brother stooped to examine the Troll, she had approached the pedestal, opening her third eye in hopes of seeing some magical thing
t
hat she and Elerian might have missed on their first venture into the room. She noticed nothing of interest until her eyes happened upon the ring on her left hand. Beneath the illusion cloaking her ring, she saw the familiar ruby inset in the silver band pulsing in a steady rhythm. Springing from the ring, however, was a slender golden thread which she had never seen before, for this was the first time that she had looked at her ring with her magical third eye. The thread ran to the northwest, ending abruptly after only a few feet.

“This thread connects to Elerian’s ring,” Anthea thought excitedly to herself. “It must enter a small portal to span the gap between us. Would that I could follow it,” she thought, shaken by the intensity of her desire.

As if in response to her will, the necklace around Anthea’s slim throat suddenly warmed and brightened. An odd sensation came over her, as if she had flowed out of her body. The room around her vanished and everything in her sight turned to gold. Then, Anthea had the odd sensation that she was in two places at once, both in the ruined chamber which she saw with her normal sight and in a grove of trees, which, seen with her third eye, resembled columns of green light under the dark night sky. Beneath her feet was a shimmering emerald carpet which could only be the living stems of a thick green turf. When she looked down at herself, she saw a golden shade, instead of her body.

As if from a great distance, Anthea heard Dacien speak, but she did not attempt to respond. Instead, she touched the shimmering bole of a tree. Her fingers sank into the wood as if she possessed no more substance than starlight.

“I have become a wraith,” she thought to herself, “but somehow I am still joined to my physical form, hence I am in two places at once.”

 A movement between two nearby tree trunks suddenly caught her eye as another golden shade emerged from between the trees. When the shade passed near her, she touched its left shoulder with her right hand and knew at once that that it was Elerian. He was singing softly to himself, each clear note echoing in her mind like a silver chime. His mind was dreaming, but Anthea knew she was in his thoughts and that pleased her a great deal. Drawing on the power of the pendant that she wore, she caused a sudden rush of wind to ruffle his hair, at the same time sending an image of herself into his mind.

Roused from his dreaming by the unnatural wind, Elerian stopped, his eyes widening in astonishment when he saw Anthea standing on his left, her right hand on his shoulder. She smiled mischievously, and for a moment, they stood motionless, joined together in a joyous reunion. When Elerian finally made as if to speak, however, Anthea abruptly found herself back in the central chamber of Dymiter's ruined dwelling with Dacien’s right hand gently shaking her left arm.

“Are you all right sister?” Dacien asked, his voice filled with concern. “I was loath to disturb you, but you were so still that for a moment I thought some sort of enchantment had befallen you.”

For a moment, Anthea tried desperately to return to the place where she had seen Elerian, but her magical eye had closed, and it seemed that the power of the necklace was no longer at her command, for it remained inert despite all her striving, emitting feeble rays that barely illuminated her face and that of Dacien standing beside her. Anger at her brother, for breaking the spell which had carried her to Elerian’s side, flashed through Anthea, but she immediately pushed it aside. Dacien, after all, had disturbed her out of concern for her well-being, not from any sense of malice.

“It was an enchantment of sorts,” she said regretfully, “but it is ended now.”

“We should leave this place, then, while we still can,” Dacien implored her.

“There is nothing for us to fear here, Dacien,” Anthea reassured him, “but we can leave now, for I have found what I came for.”

“What may that be?” asked Dacien in confusion. “I see nothing around us but ruins and an empty pedestal.”

 “You see only with mortal eyes, Dacien,” said Anthea gently. “I know now that Elerian is still alive and there is hope that we may meet again someday,” she said happily.

“How can you know that?” asked Dacien, his confusion growing by the minute.

“I have seen him,” said Anthea cryptically as she led the way back to their restive mounts. She would say no more than that about her experience on the ride back to the encampment no matter how much Dacien pressed her to reveal more.

“I must sort this out in my own mind first,” she thought to herself. It was difficult enough for her to accept the notion that she had traveled across the land as a shade until she reached Elerian’s side let alone explain it to anyone else. Side by side, she and Dacien rode swiftly and silently back to the encampment to the south, managing to return to the king’s tent undetected.

“Say nothing to anyone about tonight,” whispered Anthea before they separated to return to their beds. Dacien reluctantly agreed to keep their adventure a secret.

When the Tarsi resumed their journey that morning, Orianus noticed at once that a change had come over Anthea. Her eyes were composed as she rode beside him and even contained a measure of contentment. When it came to discerning the reason for the change, however, the king’s clear sight failed him, clouded as it was by his own hopes.

“Perhaps I chose better than I knew when I decided to return to Niveaus,” Orianus thought hopefully to himself as he rode next to Anthea that morning. “Already, she has begun to forget Elerian.”

 Had he questioned his daughter, he would have quickly discovered his error, for the opposite of what he surmised was true. Elerian was still very much in Anthea’s thoughts. Having seen that he was safe, she was content, at least for now, to wait and hope for his speedy return.

“Even if I cannot see him in the portal that he gave my father, it no longer matters,” thought Anthea happily to herself. “My pendant gives me the power to return to his side whenever I wish. He will have me close to him whether he wishes it or not,” she thought to herself, a determined look lighting up her dark blue eyes.