The Quest (The Hidden Realm Book 5) (10 page)

“A fair land,” thought Elerian to himself as he looked out his window. “I hope the Dwarves can keep it from falling into the hands of the Goblins,” he thought somberly to himself.

As the sun was setting in the west, the company stopped briefly at a way station for a meal and fresh ponies before setting out again. Elerian continued to ride with Dacien and Triarus, musing now, while his companions slept in their seats, over the grim turn his life had taken. From time to time, he glanced at his ruby ring, but the stone remained dark like his thoughts.

“Almost, I hope that Anthea has already passed from this realm,” he thought grimly to himself. “At least she would then be beyond the reach of her monstrous captor.” Exhausted from worry and lack of rest, he, too, finally fell into one of his rare periods of true sleep.

The morning sun was creeping over the peaks of the eastern Nivalis when the carriages arrived at the entrance to a narrow, wooded defile that thrust deep into the western foothills of the mountains. A small, clear stream flowed down the center of the canyon, running along the left hand shoulder of a narrow road that quickly disappeared under the ancient trees that covered the floor of the valley. When the carriages entered the wood, the stream veered off to the left, vanishing between the trees. Despite the rising sun, the carriages traveled through a shadowed landscape, for the thick branches of the immense trees growing on either side of the road formed a dense canopy overhead that blocked out the golden light of the morning sun.

After traveling a mile or so, the carriages emerged from the forest into a clearing. On the western side of the glade, a sheer gray cliff rose up, the road ending at its base before double doors of black steel, each door about ten feet high and six feet wide. The cliff face around the entryway had the glassy look of spell-hardened stone to Elerian. Standing guard on either side of the doors was a grim faced Dwarf clad in black mail. A short distance to the right of the gate was a small stone guardhouse with a slate roof, one of the few freestanding structures Elerian had seen in the Caldaria. Thick turf grew right up to the stone walls of the house, which was shaded by several large oak trees.

As the carriage came to a stop before the doorway in the cliff face, seven Dwarves dressed in black hooded tunics walked through the front door of the guardhouse. Elerian took the color of their garments as an ominous sign of their office, for black was a color not usually favored by Dwarves. None of the Dwarves carried arms, for word concerning the company had already reached them through a hawk sent by Dardanus. 

Ascilius climbed stiffly out of the first carriage, for he had given over the reins to one of the drivers midway through the night when they stopped for a fresh team. The rest of the company also disembarked. Elerian ended the Dwarf illusions that disguised him and Dacien, judging that they no longer served any purpose. Once they passed through the gates before them it would not matter who knew that they had left the Caldaria. All of the gate guards started when they saw Elerian and Dacien suddenly assume the guise of Tarsian warriors. A sturdy, black bearded fellow, the first to recover his composure, spoke to Ascilius.

“My name is Dama, my lord,” he said respectfully. “I am the commander here. I have a message for you that was carried here by one of the king’s hawks.” Wondering what news the message contained, Ascilius took the note that Dama handed him. As he read it, a frown spread across his face.

“Surely Falco is mistaken,” he thought to himself when he came to the end of the brief letter. “Herias is an odd sort but still shares our blood.” Having read the note through, Ascilius consumed it with a single flame of mage fire, resolving to keep its contents to himself for now.

“Is it true that you plan to open the Black Gate?” Dama asked then, disbelief clearly evident in his voice.

“Yes,” said Ascilius. “I plan to enter the passageway beyond it with my companions.” Dama and the Dwarves standing behind him paled at Ascilius’s reply. They were all brave, for only the most courageous Dwarves were allowed to become gate wardens here, but the thought of entering the tunnel they guarded sent tremors of fear though them.

“Lord, reconsider,” said Dama urgently. “Great danger lies behind this gate. Often when we stand guard, we hear whispers in our mind telling us to open the doors. In the past, more than one door warden has been driven mad by his service here. It is for this reason that none of us has the key to the lock spells on the gate.”

“I thank you for your concern Dama but nothing you can say will change my mind,” replied Ascilius firmly. “When we have passed through the doors, I will renew the spells that hold them closed. Bolt them behind us, for we will not return this way.”

“I will fetch the key then,” said Dama reluctantly before walking away toward the guardhouse with his small command, all of them whispering together in concerned voices.

“You and all the others should stay here, Ascilius,” said Elerian stiffly, in a last attempt to dissuade the Dwarf and his companions from accompanying him. “None of you can help Anthea.”

“There has been sense of doom about you since we arrived in Iulius,” replied Ascilius with a frown. “What is the source of it? Have you abandoned common sense again and looked into that accursed orb of yours?”

“What I have done is no concern of yours,” replied Elerian harshly, all the pent up frustration and anger that he felt inside bubbling up at once. Anger darkened Ascilius’s broad brow at the sharp rebuke. With difficulty he controlled his mercurial temperament, holding back a response that would only worsen the strain between himself and Elerian. Scowling, he turned away, joining the rest of the company, who were putting on their gear. Elerian sullenly followed his example. He regretted his harsh response to Ascilius, but each time he and the Dwarf spoke, Ascilius’s comments and tone unleashed the tempestuous emotions that had afflicted him since he learned of Anthea’s abduction. “We would be better off if we did not talk to each other at all,” thought Elerian grimly to himself.

Soon, all six members of the company had placed light helms on their heads and dressed themselves in black chain mail that came halfway down to their knees. On their left arms, they carried round shields darkened to a dull black finish. Cyricus and Cordus were armed with axes. Triarus, Dacien, and Elerian carried swords. Ascilius had Fulmen clasped firmly in his right hand. Each member of the company, except for Elerian, carried a crossbow fastened to his pack. A short, recurved bow in a leather case rode on his knapsack. By this time Dama and his Dwarves had returned, all of them wearing black mail and carrying axes or hammers, as if they expected trouble of some sort. In his right hand, Dama held a large black key.

When Dama and his small company of door wardens walked to the gate, Ascilius and his companions followed them. Dama watched grimly as two of his Dwarves pulled back, with trembling hands, three thick steel shot bolts that held the gate closed. Reluctantly, he then thrust his key into a keyhole in the right hand door and turned it, eliciting an ominous click from the lock. The gate captain turned to Ascilius, his face made pale by fear.

“The gate is still spell locked,” he said grimly.

“I will release the spells Dama, but you must stand back out of hearing,” replied Ascilius, a request that Dama and his wardens were only too happy to obey. Retreating a score of feet away, they waited with their weapons at the ready, as if they expected something awful to leap through the doors when they were opened. Leaning his head close to the doors, Ascilius spoke the words which released the spells holding them closed, whispering so that no one would hear them.

Up that point the doors had appeared black and lifeless, but once Ascilius cast his spells, intricate, slender silver threads of argentum gleamed against the dark steel of which they were made. The gate wardens all squeezed their weapons with white knuckled hands as Ascilius grasped, one in each hand, the iron rings that hung from each door. Not knowing what to expect, everyone gathered before the gate waited tensely as Ascilius swung the doors open on silent, well-oiled hinges.

THE PASSAGEWAY

The gloom beyond the doors was thick and unrelieved by any light, providing a perfect cover for anything that might lurk within the confines of the passageway behind it. Although the dark tunnel seemed to exude danger and menace, nothing sprang out to attack Ascilius as he stood warily in the doorway. His face pale with fear, one of the door wardens standing behind Ascilius suddenly addressed him in the Dwarf tongue.

“Do not go into the passageway my lord. I am certain that the guardian of the tunnel waits within. Remain with us along with your royal cousins and let the outlanders go to their deaths alone.” A frown creased Ascilius’s broad brow and his dark eyes gleamed with anger in response to the Dwarf’s words. His right hand tightened around Fulmen’s handle as he turned to face the door warden.

“Think carefully before you counsel me to act a coward's role!” he replied sharply in the same language. The Dwarf who had spoken immediately hung his head and said no more.

“Be not angry lord,” said Dama placatingly. “Orem only desires to save your life, not to cast aspersions on your courage.”

“My life is my own to spend as I wish,” replied Ascilius harshly. Turning to Cyricus and Cordus who stood behind him on his right, he asked, “Do you wish to stay behind?”

“No cousin!” they both replied stoutly. “The passageway does not exist that we are affrighted to enter!”

“The matter is settled then,” said Ascilius grimly to Dama before turning around to face the tunnel entrance once more. He was alarmed when he saw that Elerian had already entered the passageway without waiting for his companions. The golden spark of a small mage light floated above his head, illuminating his lithe figure as he walked with a quick, light stride down the gloomy tunnel.

“Wait for us Elerian!” shouted Ascilius as he hastily lit his own mage light.

“I have waited enough!” replied Elerian impatiently over his right shoulder, feeling as if he must burst asunder from the impatience and anxiety that filled his breast. “I grudge every minute that now separates me from Anthea.”

“Orem’s good intentions will be our ruin,” thought Ascilius angrily to himself as he dashed into the passageway. Behind him, his companions hesitated. Then, bracing themselves as if they were about to enter a pool of icy water, they plunged into the tunnel after Ascilius. Behind them, a hollow boom echoed through the passageway as the guards hastily closed the gate. The thunk of metal against metal followed as the wardens slid the shot pins into place. The sounds brought home everyone that there was no longer any going back to the safety of the outside world. They also stopped Ascilius in his tracks.

“I must lock the doors,” he thought to himself. For an instant he hesitated, torn between his duty and his desire to chase after Elerian. Then, turning on his right heel, he ran through the midst of his four companions and quickly restored the spells that held the doors closed. When he finally turned away from the gate, he became even more alarmed when he saw that Elerian was now so far down the passageway that his light glowed like a firefly in the darkness. Fearing that some fey mood had overtaken his companion, Ascilius angrily called out again.

“Stop running you fool! We must stay together!” His words were absorbed and muffled by the thick darkness that filled the passageway. In the distance, the golden spark that was Elerian’s mage light suddenly vanished.

“I have chosen ill today,” Ascilius reproached himself, his dim mage light revealing the worried look on his craggy features. “I should have come back later to lock the gate. If I fail to catch him, that half-wit will either lose himself in the passageway or come face to face, all alone, with the monster that haunts it.”

“Stay close,” he shouted to his companions before running down the passageway after Elerian. Anxious to remain in close proximity to Ascilius and his light, his companions sprang hastily after him. Along with Ascilius, they were swallowed up by the inky darkness that filled the tunnel. After their footsteps and shouts for Elerian to stop faded away into the depths of the passageway, all was still once more behind the Black Gate.

Driven by his need to reach Anthea as soon as possible, Elerian had abandoned thought and reason after entering the passageway. Ignoring Ascilius’s call for him to stop, he let his quick, supple strides carry away from his anxious companions, his soft boots making no more noise than his shadow as it followed him down the tunnel. His path was littered with boulders, large and small, but the tiny mage light hovering above his head allowed him to easily avoid every obstacle in the twisted passageway ahead of him, leaping lightly over them or slipping around them with a lithe grace more akin to that of a feline than anything that went about on two legs. He might have traveled on for miles in this fey mood, but as he circled to the left around a large boulder that intruded on his path, something suddenly sprang out from behind the stone with a strange, yowling cry.

Acting on reflex, Elerian froze in his tracks, at the same time seizing the hilt of Acris with his right hand, the sword making a sibilant, deadly sound as he drew it from the leather sheath that depended down his back. The convoluted, silvery threads of argentum inlaid in its blade emitted a bright light as the sword came alive at the touch of his fingers, illuminating the brindled form of a Spadix fleeing down the tunnel ahead of him in great bounds, its shadow leaping crazily across the walls of the passageway. Elerian calmed his wildly beating heart as the spadix disappeared around a sharp bend in the tunnel, its claws scrabbling on the hard stone beneath its paws. The unexpected appearance of the creature brought him back to his senses, and as one wakened from a dream, he sheathed his sword and looked around him, suddenly realizing that he was alone.

“What could have come over me to run off like that?” he wondered ruefully to himself. “Ascilius will have something to say about it when he catches up with me, and rightfully so, for it was both foolish and dangerous to leave the others behind.” Surprised by his temperate thought, Elerian delved inside himself and found that the anger and resentment that he had felt toward Ascilius since meeting Dacien at the east pass had abruptly moderated, as if the encounter with the spadix had allowed him to regain control of his emotions again.

“Perhaps the fey mood that has ruled me since Dacien told me of Anthea’s capture has finally subsided,” thought Elerian to himself. “I should make my peace with Ascilius when he arrives. Irritating as he may be, he has only sought to aid Anthea and me.” Sheathing Acris, he sat himself on a chair-sized stone, resolved to wait there until his companions arrived.

Elerian’s mage light created a pool of dim light around him, but at the boundaries of its faint rays, both in front of him and behind him, a thick, inky darkness reared itself up like an impenetrable wall. For the first time, he became aware of the oppressive silence which filled the passageway, a silence so deep and complete that it seemed to him that he could almost hear his own heart beating in his chest. As he continued to sit, he had the impression that the gloom beyond the limits of his light was becoming more opaque, and that the air he breathed into his lungs was thickening, taking on a tangible weight that made each inhalation an effort. He started when strange mewling cries and the scraping of hard claws over stone suddenly broke the silence. His mind was suddenly filled with the images of hideous creatures, ropes of saliva dripping onto the cold stone floor of the tunnel from their fanged jaws as they crouched in the dark just beyond the reach of his dim mage light, watching him with their cold, pale, hungry eyes. Overcome by an unreasoning fear that something was about to leap on him from out of the gloom, Elerian abruptly sprang to his feet, his right hand on the cool, silver hilt of his sword. At the touch of Acris’s smooth, ridged handle, the terrible visions in his head, along with his momentary alarm, vanished like mist. Opening his magical third eye, he probed the murk beyond the reach of his light, but saw only darkness unrelieved by the light of any shade. The feeling of being watched remained, however.

“Something has somehow hidden itself nearby, playing with my fears as a cat might play with its prey before finally dispatching it,” thought Elerian to himself. Bright anger welled up his breast, fueled by the frustration that had plagued him since learning of Anthea’s fate. Acris hissed against its leather sheath as he drew it forth, the threads of argentum embedded along the length of the sword's deadly blade gleaming with a cold light as Elerian held it high, the silvery light from the enchanted metal causing his gray eyes to gleam with a perilous light. 

“Show yourself,” he shouted in a firm, clear voice that pierced the darkness. “Step into the light and face me instead of skulking in the shadows like a coward.” As his voice was swallowed by the heavy silence around him, Elerian suddenly heard something scuttle off deeper into the gloom ahead of him.

“Was something malevolent hiding nearby or did the sound come from the spadix I saw earlier?” wondered Elerian to himself. The passageway around him now seemed just a tunnel under the earth, like many that he had trodden before, leading him to wonder if the incident he had just experienced was entirely imaginary, borne of his own fears and the darkness around him.

The faint sound of booted feet pounding heavily on stone suddenly drew his attention to the passageway behind him. Warily, he turned in that direction, and before long, Ascilius appeared, his craggy features illuminated by the small mage light which floated in the air above his head. He was breathing heavily, and his face looked both distraught and angry, as if he was torn between relief at finding Elerian and anger that he had run off alone. Cordus and Cyricus followed behind him and behind them were Dacien and Triarus, all of them displaying varying expressions of distress and concern on their faces. Ascilius slowed at once when he saw Elerian, stopping only a few feet away from him.

“Have you lost your mind?” he roared when he had recovered his breath somewhat. “The passageway ahead of us may contain branches that dead end or lead into the depths of the earth. You might have taken some wrong turn in the darkness that would have lost you forever!” The Dwarf’s harsh words and tone had the effect of instantly reviving Elerian’s newly subsided rancor toward his companion. His intention of reconciling himself with Ascilius vanished like smoke in the wind.

“As you can see, I am neither lost nor mindless,” he replied coldly. “If you cannot keep up with me that is your affair.” For a moment, while their companions looked on uncomfortably, Elerian and Ascilius glared at each other more like enemies than friends, one looking down and one looking up. Ascilius calmed down first, already regretting his outburst.

“It makes the greatest sense for us to stay together,” he said in more reasonable tones. “The guardian of the passageway may still draw breath in these dark tunnels. If we encounter it, we are better off facing it together. There may also be other dangers such as chasms in the floor which are better faced as a group.”

“Lead on then, Master Dwarf, since you are so much more qualified than me,” replied Elerian, sardonically. Biting back an angry reply, his back rigid with anger, Ascilius turned to the rest of the company, determined to add no more fuel to the argument that had reignited between himself and Elerian. A quick glance at his companions revealed that Cordus and Cyricus were both scowling at Elerian, upset at his rude treatment of Ascilius. Triarus looked uneasy, upset by the friction between the two leaders of the company. Dacien also looked uncomfortable and sad, too, at this further dissolution of the friendship between Ascilius and Elerian.

“Stay between me and Elerian in whatever order you wish,” Ascilius ordered his companions gruffly. “Always keep sight of the one ahead of you so that you do not become lost.” Turning abruptly away from them, he set off down the passageway, his anger clearly evident by the way he stomped his booted feet onto the stone floor of the passageway. Relegated to the rear of the company, Elerian sheathed his sword and followed the others in sullen silence when they set off after the Dwarf. He considered warning Ascilius about what he had felt in the dark, but finally elected to keep his own counsel for now.

“Without proof that there was anything real threatening me, he will only make light of my fears, implying that I am like a child who is afraid of the dark, seeing monsters where there are none,” he thought bitterly to himself as followed the single file made by his companions.

Surrounded by a dim pool of light that was formed by Ascilius’s mage light at the front of the column and that of Elerian at the back, the perceptions the members of the company had of their surroundings varied greatly as they advanced down the tunnel. The two men saw only a pale grayness around them in which the walls of the tunnel and the boulders littering their path were indistinct shadows. The three Dwarves, on the other hand, were able to clearly perceive the walls of the passageway and the floor beneath their feet. Elerian, the last in line, saw best of all the company. Save for the lack of color, he saw everything in as great detail as if he walked beneath the light of the stars.

The thoughts of the company varied as much as their ability to see. Once he had calmed down, Ascilius proceeded warily, but confidently down the tunnel. Despite his initial misgivings, the passageway, thus far, seemed no different from many other places that he had trod deep under the earth.

“I have seen and heard nothing which leads me to believe that the creature which attacked my father and uncles is still alive,” he thought to himself. “With luck, it may have died of old age in the long years since Corbulo and his companions encountered it.” Behind Ascilius, Cordus and Cyricus were already bored, convinced more than ever that the tales of the guardian were just that. Dacien was consumed with thoughts of his sister and paid little attention to his surroundings. Triarus walked with eyes wide open, starting at every imagined sound, longing for the moment when they would quit this dark place. Elerian’s thoughts, like Dacien’s, eventually turned to Anthea. The image of her slender hands and feet, reduced to bleeding stumps, appeared constantly before his mind’s eye and woke again his need to hurry.