The Quest (The Hidden Realm Book 5) (19 page)

Leaving the chest and ledger on the table, Ascilius crossed the room to the ruined door that stood to the right of the fireplace. The stoic, enduring nature of the Dwarves had left him less affected by the sad tale of Fodere than Elerian. Thoughts of the riches that might lie in the mine beyond the doorway were now uppermost in his mind. With Elerian reluctantly following him, he entered the tunnel, which was about seven feet high and wide with rough-hewn walls. As he followed the excavation deeper beneath the valley floor, Ascilius’s mage light sparked golden glints from the walls on either side of him. Animatedly, he stopped to show Elerian one portion of the passageway where a wire of gold the thickness of a finger twisted through the rock.

“This is a rich deposit,” he said, his dark eyes alight with excitement.”

“I would not stay here to mine it if the walls around us were solid gold,” replied Elerian forcefully. “We should quit this place now.”

“Not yet!” insisted Ascilius. He went on, caught up in the strong allure treasure had for the Dwarf race until he came to an opening on his left which debouched into a small room about eight feet square and seven high. His mage light revealed a white heap of bones piled up in the center of the room, each separated from the others as if something had systematically torn their owners to pieces. Most of the larger bones bore score marks, as if the flesh had been scraped off of them by some substance harder than bone.

“The Gargol must have tortured and killed Fodere and his family in this very room,” thought Elerian grimly to himself, wondering again at the cruelty and ferocity of the creature.

Beyond the bones, stacked against the far wall of the room, were dozens of golden bars about a foot long and four inches square. Untarnished by time, they gleamed in the dim rays of Ascilius’s mage light. Skirting the heap of bones, which seemed to affect him not at all, Ascilius picked up one of the bars in his right hand and tilted it, revealing a crest consisting of a pick and shovel crossed at the handles.

“This device is the mark of an old house,” said Ascilius to Elerian, “but none of its members are left alive today. If we live through this adventure, we will return someday and share equally in the wealth gathered here. Added to what you discovered in the passageway and what Dardanus holds in trust for you, it will amount to a considerable amount of wealth.”

The thought of more gold held little attraction for Elerian, especially gold gained through such great suffering. “We ought to leave it here,” he said to Ascilius. “It was cursed by Fodere and has his blood and that of his family on it.”

“According to his own journal he was no mage, so his curses mean little,” replied Ascilius indifferently. “The suffering he and his kin endured is sad and unfortunate, but it is also over and done with. Turning our back on this treasure will in no wise change what happened here. It makes more sense to put the wealth he and his family mined to good use. Fodere himself would act no differently in our place.”

“Count your gold then,” said Elerian with a shrug. “I would rather see how the creature gained entrance to the mine.” Leaving the treasure room, Elerian lit his own small mage light before walking to the end of the mineshaft. There, he found a large opening in the right hand wall. The walls of the tunnel beyond it were covered by deep score marks and gouges, evidence that the Gargol had burrowed through the solid rock using only its stony hands and claws for tools. The far end of the short passageway was blocked with loose stone, as if the creature had pushed its tailings behind it as it forged deeper into the earth.

“I see that the tunnel the creature dug is blocked,” observed Ascilius who had appeared behind Elerian’s right shoulder. “Once we seal the outer door, the treasure will keep until we return.”

“You may return, but I will not,” thought Elerian grimly to himself as he contemplated for a melancholy moment the gloomy futures revealed to him by his orb.

“Let us leave this place if you are done exploring it,” was all he said aloud to Ascilius.

After he and Elerian climbed the stairs that led from the dwelling and stepped outside, Ascilius sealed the door again with a powerful closing spell. When they returned to their shelter under the slab the Dwarf went back to sleep, but Elerian spent a long time sitting beneath the overhang with his gaze fixed on the oily gem that he held in the palm of his right hand.

“I have the means now to sway Ascilius,” he thought to himself, “but before I can begin that task, I must first discover the spells that will open a gate.” After depositing the gem in a pocket, Elerian extended his right hand, calling Dymiter’s spell book to him, for that seemed to be the best place in which to begin his search for the charms he needed. Instantly, a small brown book appeared on his upturned palm, the word Dymiter written on its cover in golden letters. When Elerian opened the book with his left hand, a familiar golden shade suddenly became visible to his magical third eye.

“Why did you not come to me before?” silently demanded Elerian of Dymiter. “Anthea has been taken by the Goblins!”

“I have grown weak and must husband my strength,” replied Dymiter sadly by casting his thought into Elerian’s mind. “I have come now only to release my book to you so that you may search it at will, for you may have need of it in the dark days that approach.” Dymiter's shade suddenly faded and the mage's voice grew faint, barely above a whisper. “My power fades Elerian. At most, I will be able to appear to you one more time. If the world changes and the time comes for the trees of Fimbria to be renewed, open my book and I will reveal the last of my secrets to you and Anthea.” Elerian sighed in frustration as the shade of the Elven mage vanished once more.

“At least I now command his book entirely,” he thought to himself as he turned to the spell book in his hand. Free, now, to look anywhere in the volume, he turned page after page, searching for spells that dealt with portals and gates. He was disappointed, however, to find little mention of gates in the Elven mage’s book. If Dymiter had knowledge of such things, he had not recorded it on the pages of his spell book. As dawn broke, Elerian ended his search and sent the spell book away. “I will have to craft my own charm,” he thought to himself, wondering if he was clever enough to construct a spell that had evaded even the Gargol.

After Elerian woke the company, Ascilius told everyone about Fodere and his demise as they ate a cold breakfast of biscuits and cheese. Cyricus and Cordus wanted to see the dwelling’s treasures with their own eyes, but Elerian was against the unnecessary delay. When Ascilius took his part, they broke camp as the first golden rays of the sun lightened the eastern horizon. By design, Elerian was the first through the cleft. He had the others wait while he examined the ground with his sharp hunter’s eyes, but he was unable to identify the faint prints left behind in the thick turf in front of the cleft.

“Hooves like those of the Gargol would have cut into the ground, and we would have smelled a Troll,” he observed to Ascilius who stood nearby watching him examine the ground. “It may have been a bear or some other large hunter.”

“Who knows?” replied the Dwarf with a shrug of his shoulders. “The Trofim and the forests which cover them reach all the way to the northern fells. No one alive knows all of the creatures that roam that vast wilderness. All we can do is to be as careful as possible as we proceed farther west.”

After leading the rest of the company out of the cleft, Ascilius waited while Elerian cast a protective illusion over himself and his companions. Then, after a careful look around, he led his companions down the valley at a steady trot.

TROLL COUNTRY

At regular intervals during the day, Ascilius slowed his pace to a walk to allow his companions a bit of rest, but he called no real halt until a cluster of carriage-sized boulders with a large, flat slab resting on their crowns appeared on his right just as the sun began to drop toward the western horizon.

“This looks to be a good place to spend the night,” he observed to his companions before leading the way toward the stones. Beneath the slab, Ascilius discovered a small cave with enough headroom for a Dwarf to stand. Several large gaps between the boulders supporting the stone roof evidently allowed a good deal of sunlight to reach into the cavity beneath the slab, for a thick carpet of turf covered the ground. Ascilius and his companions gratefully cast themselves down to rest on this verdant carpet, but Elerian strung his bow after setting aside his pack. He was in now wise tired, and had chafed all day at the slow pace that Ascilius had set. He had kept his impatience to himself, however, for he knew that neither Dacien nor Triarus was much used to running for an extended period of time. Ending his illusion spell, he stepped out into the thickening twilight outside the half cave, determined to bring fresh game to their table again before the light failed.

The numerous hares that inhabited the valley had already come out to feed in the fading light. Without stirring from where he stood, Elerian brought down three of the plump, unwary creatures with his arrows, all of them expiring so quickly that their comrades continued to feed undisturbed around them. When Elerian approached to retrieve the hares he had slain, the rest retreated slowly and without panic before him.

“They are not much used to two legged hunters,” thought Elerian to himself as he carried his catch a good distance from the cave sheltering his companions before skinning and cleaning it. When he returned to the campsite, it was full dark. His companions started and reached for their weapons when he passed between two of the boulders supporting the slab, for his light steps had given no warning of his approach.

“You had best learn not to approach an armed camp so silently or it will cost you dearly someday,” grumbled Ascilius as he set Fulmen aside and sat down again.

“It does seem a dangerous habit,” agreed Dacien disapprovingly as he sheathed Acer.

“I think it more than worth the risk to see Ascilius’s hair stand on end,” replied Elerian with a gleam in his eyes. The Dwarf was about to make an irritated reply when he spied the hares that Elerian was carrying in his right hand.

“I will take these in lieu of an apology,” he said, taking the fresh game into his own right hand. “Now go and find me some sticks.”

When Elerian returned with three long pieces of driftwood the thickness of a finger, Ascilius happily spitted the hares and began roasting them over a small mage fire which he lit with a wave of his left hand. They had begun to brown nicely and emit a most tantalizing odor when a lizard like creature resembling a salamander suddenly appeared in the flames before the Dwarf. About a foot long, its sleek black hide was streaked with yellow markings that seemed to waver and twist, like the flames surrounding it. Seemingly impervious to the heat of the magical fire, the creature stared boldly up at Ascilius with its ruby eyes. The Dwarf started back in surprise at the sudden appearance of the creature, then gave a roar of outrage as it attempted to pilfer one of the roasting hares. Seizing the hare with his left hand, Ascilius drew his knife from his belt with his right hand and stabbed at the small thief, only to have the creature disappear before his steel struck home. When Ascilius withdrew his weapon, the lizard appeared in the fire again and renewed its assault on the roasting hare. Elerian, who was sitting nearby, momentarily forgot the worries that weighed him down and smiled as an animated game of hide and stab now ensued between Ascilius and the strange creature. His third eye opened of its own accord, as it was wont to do in the presence of magic, revealing a brief, fiery circle in the fire each time the lizard appeared or disappeared.

“That creature is traveling into and out of the fire through a portal,” thought Elerian to himself. “Is it hiding nearby or does it somehow sense the flames from afar, I wonder?” Before he could satisfy his curiosity any further, the contest between Ascilius and the lizard abruptly ended after it finally succeeded in tearing a foreleg from a roasting hare. With its succulent prize clamped firmly in its mouth, it disappeared and did not return.

“We had best eat before the creature returns with all its family and friends to pilfer the rest of our meal,” said Ascilius to his companions in an irritated voice.

“If you put out your fire, I do not think it will be able to find its way back,” advised Elerian. His guess proved right, for after Ascilius extinguished his mage fire, they were able to enjoy their meal without interruption. Later, after his companions sought out their blankets, Elerian sat down between two boulders just inside the shelter provided by the slab, staring out into the night and thinking about Anthea. He found that his former frantic impatience to reach her side had transmuted into grim acceptance of the future that was inexorably bearing down on him, calming him almost to the point of detachment, for what use was it to struggle or worry if his future was fixed and inevitable.

“Anthea and I will die together in Tyranus and I can neither slow nor hurry that fate,” thought Elerian somberly to himself. He started then when, above the murmur of the nearby stream, his keen ears suddenly heard a faint booming sound from the west, like muted thunder.

“Are those drums?” wondered Elerian to himself, a frown wrinkling his brow. Had he taken wing then and flown into the forested mountains that rose up in the west, he would have found the answer to his question in a small, steep sided valley that had been cleared of trees. Boulders were arranged in rows across its steep slopes, like seats in a primitive amphitheater. A goodly number of the stones were occupied Trolls, most of them being old, young, or female, for most of the males who were of an age to go to war had left the Trofim to serve in Torquatus’s wars.

A huge bonfire burned in a pit in the center of the amphitheater, its yellow and red flames casting flickering shadows across the coarse, hairless features of the audience. Not far from the fire, three huge Trolls beat enormous, skin covered drums with their massive fists, sending out the sound which had troubled Elerian’s ears. From the dense forest surrounding the valley, other Trolls were still arriving, striding out from under the eaves of the wood to take their places on the slopes of the amphitheater.

Sitting or lying by the fire near was a mixed pack of coal black lupins and canigrae, the hounds almost indistinguishable from their four footed masters. Their mouths were open, and their red tongues lolled over their keen white teeth as if they had run a great distance. When Trolls stopped arriving from the wood, and the noise of the drums abruptly ceased, one of the lupins, fully a third larger than his pack mates, stood up and stretched lazily before trotting over to a large boulder that stood by the fire. Leaping effortlessly to the top of it, he turned to face the assembled Trolls from his elevated perch. With his hairy black shape outlined by the leaping yellow flames of the fire, he began to address the Trolls in a harsh, growling voice that carried to the farthest reaches of the valley.

“Greetings to the Trolls of the Trofim from the Dark King. He sends word through me that the wars go in our favor and any who wish to join him will be well rewarded, for he admires the Trolls above all the other peoples of the Middle Realm.” At this point in the lupin’s speech some of the older Trolls made rude noises and shouted unflattering comments at the Dark King's messenger. Many of the grandsires had served in the Goblin armies before, and the memories they carried of those times were not pleasant ones.

“Liar!” they roared. “We have yet to see any reward. As for the Goblin King’s wars, they have served only to drive away our sweetest prey. The Elves are gone and even Dwarves and Men do not venture this way any longer.” The hair on his back bristling straight up, the lupin snarled in anger at the rude censure from his audience, but after a moment, he composed himself and continued with his address.

“Things will change when the Dark King wins his wars. There will be sweet meat then for all who serve him. Do you think gold or silver keep me and my brethren in his service?” he asked showing white teeth and upper fangs that projected well past his black lower lip. “To show his good faith, Torquatus has sent you a gift. In return, he asks only that you keep a vigil on your borders for any travelers out of the east. These you may capture and slay as you wish. The Dark King asks only that you send him their heads and anything that they carry with them. He will reward you richly for this act.”

The lupin now lifted up his head and howled. A moment later, several of his pack mates drove a large group of terrified men out of the forest at the outlet to the valley. They were castoffs from the mines, thin and weak from their long labors, but the Trolls did not seem to notice their pitiful condition. Starved for man flesh, they leaped off their seats with a bloodthirsty howl and rushed down the sides of the rude amphitheater, jostling each other in their haste to reach the men. Snarling and showing their teeth, the lupins and canigrae around the fire retreated into the forest to avoid being trampled by the unruly horde. When the Trolls reached the terrified men, the night was rendered horrible by the shrieks of the prisoners. They were torn apart alive as each Troll tried to procure some tender morsel for himself or herself. Fierce fights broke out everywhere over bits of bloody flesh, and the night was filled with shrieks and bellows as the Trolls attacked each other with fists, teeth, and claws. When the din finally died down, the lupin resumed his place on the boulder and spoke again to his savage audience.

“Do the Dark King’s bidding and he will deliver tenfold the number of men you have consumed tonight into your hands,” he promised before leaping down from his perch and leading his followers into the forest at the egress to the valley. Behind him the Trolls also exited the amphitheater, bound for their caves with their bloody booty. Later when their man flesh was cooked and eaten and the bones gnawed and split for their marrow, each Troll resolved to watch every pathway through their land for signs of the strangers wanted by Torquatus so that they might earn a second toothsome feast.  

Miles to the east, Elerian continued his vigil through the night, unaware of the reception that awaited him and his companions in the west. He saw and heard no sign of the nightwalker that had disturbed the company on their first night in the valley. The only living things that passed near the camp were hares, and a sleek, bushy tailed fox hunting its dinner. When he roused everyone at first light, Elerian mentioned the sounds that he had heard to Ascilius, but the Dwarf scoffed at his notion that he had heard drums.

“It was most likely thunder in the distance,” he reassured Elerian. “There may have been a storm to the west, beyond the mountains.”

For the next two days Ascilius continued to lead the company down the valley at a steady jog, all of them hidden from sight by Elerian’s illusion spell. By evening of the second day, they reached the junction of the cheerful mountain stream that flowed on their left and the Arvina, which flowed southwest across their line of march, running through a great forested valley which it had carved between the mountains. The company now found their progress blocked, for the Arvina was already a swift, deep river in this place, swollen by mountain streams which added their turbulent waters to its flow in the heights of the Trofim.

“Should we look north or south for a ford?” Elerian asked Ascilius after examining the green, turbulent flow of the river.

“It would not be wise to go south,” replied Ascilius. “The river only gains in volume and eventually enters a great gorge with steep cliffs on both sides. We would have to travel almost to Calenus before we could climb out. To the north, the flow of the river will lessen, affording us a better chance to find a ford.”

“That route will take us deeper into the Trofim,” objected Elerian. “We might do better to try and skirt Calenus than travel through Troll country.”

“I will not go near Calenus,” replied Ascilius, firmly. “That way is too well guarded. The Trolls have no reason to suspect that we are here. With a little luck, we will slip past them before they are even aware of us.”

“Lead on then,” agreed Elerian in a resigned voice after further argument failed to dissuade Ascilius from his desire to travel north. With a route decided, the Dwarf led his companions along the stony east bank of the river, keeping close to the eaves of the forest where thick, leaf covered branches blocked out the sky. Impeded by the boulders which littered the riverbank and the great humped roots of the trees which snaked across the ground, Ascilius slowed his pace to a walk. Behind him, his companions spread out as they traveled around and over the obstacles in their path. Before long, they were so scattered that it became impossible for Elerian to maintain his illusion spell.

“If I cannot hide them, I can at least make sure the way ahead of my companions is free of danger,” thought Elerian to himself as he took to the canopy overhead. After a quick glance at his companions toiling over the ground below, he began running over the great lateral branches of the oaks and beeches ahead of him, reveling in the freedom of movement offered by the upper pathways of the forest.

“The woody pathways and green walls of this forest are finer than any city carved from cold stone,” thought Elerian to himself as his quick, sure steps carried him through the canopy. “If only Anthea were here beside me, I would want for nothing else,” he thought sadly to himself.