The Quest (The Hidden Realm Book 5) (32 page)

THE HAVEN

Drawing closer to the trunk of the oak, Elerian raised his right hand and spoke the same spell that had opened his parents’ dwelling in the Abercius. Closing his third eye after the golden sphere that sped from his fingers struck the magical door, he saw that an elliptical opening, four feet at its widest and perhaps seven feet high, had appeared in the wide bole of the tree. Through the opening Elerian saw a small landing that terminated at a set of steps that led down into the earth. A thick layer of dust covered both the stone floor of the hall and the stairs.

“This place has long been empty,” said Elerian in a disappointed voice to Anthea when he saw that the dust in the hall was undisturbed. “I had had hoped that Elves might still be living in it.”

“Let us make certain,” replied Anthea, lighting a small mage light which took up a position a foot above her dark locks. Exhibiting her usual fearlessness, she stepped through the opening onto the landing. Drawing Acer with his right hand, Elerian followed her inside and down the flight of steps. After passing through an unlocked wooden door at the base of the stairway, he and Anthea stepped into a great, circular room with stone walls, an arched ceiling, and a large fireplace inset into the wall on their right. On the far side of the room, a second set of steps led up to another wooden door. To their left, the wall was pierced by four more doorways. Well-crafted furniture filled the room, but like the hall and the stairs behind them, everything was covered with the dust of many years and there were extensive cobwebs in all the corners.

After passing, in turn, through each of the entryways on their left, Elerian and Anthea discovered a kitchen, a bathroom with running water, a storeroom that held only two empty wooden kegs, and a dozen bedrooms arranged along a hall. None of the rooms held anything other than furniture. The inhabitants of the dwelling had evidently taken everything else when they abandoned the structure.

Carrying the kegs they had found, for Elerian planned to fill them later, they returned to the great room. Setting aside the containers, they ascended the second set of stairs. At the far end of the landing they found at the top of the stairway, they were confronted by a second magical door. When Elerian opened it with the same charm that had unlocked the first door, he and Anthea found themselves at the margin of a circular, turf covered glade with a small brook running through it. Leaden clouds, from which a fine, persistent rain was falling, covered the patch of sky framed by the branches of the trees that encircled the small meadow.

“How can this be, Elerian?” asked Anthea over his right shoulder in a puzzled voice. “We have traveled many feet, but we appear to be looking out the far side of the same oak tree that held the entryway in its side.”

“The Elves had magic that altered space and distance,” replied Elerian, harkening back to the tree dwelling that he and Ascilius had discovered in the Broken Lands. “I hope someday to unravel the secrets of the charms that they used,” he continued absently, most of his attention focused on the glade and any secrets that it might contain, but his visual exploration of the meadow revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

“This place must have been created solely as a way station for those traveling between the eastern and western lands, for everything about it hints at concealment,” he thought to himself, disappointed that there was nothing interesting or magical to be found in either the dwelling or the glade.

“I think that we would do well to spend the night inside the dwelling behind us,” suggested Anthea, interrupting his thoughts as, from the north, a sudden gust of raw wind set the leaves on the trees to fluttering. “We can have a fire and warm food as well as a dry place to sleep.”

“I agree, but there is no sense in both of us going back through the rain,” replied Elerian. “I can bring the others while you wait here.”

“Go then,” replied Anthea as they turned and returned to the main room of the dwelling. “I will begin cleaning up a bit while you are gone.”

“You would be better served to rest instead, for a little dust will make no difference to our companions,” suggested Elerian, hoping to dissuade her from undertaking such a large and to his mind useless project.

“It will trouble me,” replied Anthea firmly, both her slender hands now planted on her slim hips and her eyes grown slightly darker. “Now go away and stop bothering me.”

With a mental sigh, Elerian wisely retreated from the room rather than risk a confrontation that he was certain to lose.

“I will warn the others that there is broom work ahead for all of us, for she will not accomplish much by herself before I return,” he thought glumly to himself as he exited the dwelling.

The moment Elerian vanished up the stairwell, Anthea’s demeanor changed. Blue eyes alight with eagerness and anticipation at the opportunity to use her growing mage powers, she raised her long right hand and cast a silent spell, one that she had used before to save Elerian from an atrior. With her third eye, she saw a golden orb spring from her fingertips and expand suddenly into a golden haze that filled every corner of the dwelling. A sudden gale blew briefly through every room and hall, the magical wind exiting out the rear door of the dwelling which Elerian had left open. As the air became still again Anthea smiled somewhat smugly, for every cobweb and piece of dust in the abandoned home had been carried out by the stiff breeze that she had raised. Next she hung gold, silver, and green mage lights on the walls and ceilings of all the rooms, observing with approving looks how their warm, multicolored rays were reflected by the now polished walls and floors. Finally, using firewood that had been left behind in an ornately carved wood box next to the fireplace, Anthea kindled a fire in the hearth, using flint and steel that she found on the mantel. She was both surprised and pleased to find that the wood she used for her fire gave off no smoke as its gold and green flames filled the central chamber with the sweet scent of apples.

As the warmth of the fire spread through the great room, the rest of the company arrived at the front door, all of them in a gloomy frame of mind at the thought that they would likely be required to perform any number of domestic tasks before taking any rest or even drying their clothes, for Elerian had straightaway informed them of Anthea’s plan to clean the unkempt dwelling they had discovered.

“We must somehow rid her of this unhealthy obsession for cleanliness that she has developed,” grumbled Ascilius to Elerian as they descended the stairs. “At this rate, she will soon require us to carry brooms as well as weapons so that we can dust off our enemies before we hew them with sword or ax.”

“I like not your use of the word we,” replied Elerian dryly. “I think that being her favorite, you alone should undertake the dangerous task you have suggested while the rest of us watch from a safe distance.”

Both Elerian and Ascilius lapsed into a stunned silence as they reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped into the great room of the dwelling, they and all their companions behind them favoring their polished, gleaming surroundings with amazed looks. Seated by the hearth in a comfortable wooden chair and looking uncommonly pleased with herself, Anthea was delighted by the dumbfounded look on Elerian’s face.

“That will teach him to take me so lightly,” she thought delightedly to herself, for Elerian could not help but realize that only by using magic could she have accomplished so much in such a short time. Eyes gleaming in anticipation of further mischief, she waited for him to ask her what spells she had used to transform the room from its former disheveled state. Before he could say a word, however, Ascilius, sensing an opportunity to harass Elerian, raced across the room to her side and immediately clasped her slender right hand between both of his great, calloused palms.

“What a magnificent transformation,” the Dwarf gushed in a warm, admiring voice. “Elerian will be much relieved now that all the cleaning is done. I, of course, was more than willing to help you when he told me of the disastrous state of this dwelling, but he did nothing but complain all the way back here, harping continually on what he calls your obsession with housekeeping.”

Stunned by Ascilius’s treachery and irritated with himself for not thinking to use the same trick first, Elerian could think of nothing to say when Anthea turned from Ascilius and gave him a frosty look, her eyes grown noticeably darker again in the interval during which Ascilius had spoken. Behind Anthea’s back, Ascilius looked smugly at Elerian as he drew his right index finger significantly across his throat. Then, after whipping out his adamant ring and placing it under his nose, he assumed a meek, subservient look on his craggy features as he began to caper about in an idiotic manner.

Elerian’s sudden desire to throttle Ascilius must have shown in his eyes, for suddenly becoming aware that the rest of the company had fixed puzzled glances on something behind her, Anthea whirled around again so abruptly that she caught Ascilius in mid leap with both arms gaily outstretched into the air above his head. Sensing an opportunity to turn the tables, Elerian whisked a bit of smoldering wood from the fire with a flick of the fingers of his right hand, placing it precisely under Ascilius’s right boot just as the Dwarf’ foot made contact with the floor. Transfixed by Anthea’s cool blue eyes, even darker now than before from impatience and exasperation, Ascilius lost his balance when his right foot rolled off the branch Elerian had placed under it. With a horrified look on his bearded face, arms wind milling furiously by his sides, he fell backwards on to the floor while Elerian, feeling as if his sides must split from laughter at the sudden change in Ascilius’s fortunes, fled from the room, pausing only long enough to pick up the empty kegs that he had earlier placed by the stairwell. When he was safely outside, despite the rain that was still falling, he laughed long and merrily, recalling over and over the horrified look on Ascilius’s face as he fell.

“Let the old scoundrel talk himself out of that one,” he thought cheerfully to himself. “He has been fairly caught in the middle of his mischief this time.”

Deciding that it might be wise to be absent for a time, Elerian set out for the nearby stream to fill the containers that he carried. When he returned to the central chamber some time later, a keg under each arm, Elerian stopped short, eyes wide with amazement, for Ascilius was sitting by the fire roasting venison with Anthea acting as his willing helper. Shaking his head in disbelief, Elerian set his kegs on a bench to one side of the room. He had already changed the water in one to beer and the water in the other into a rich, red wine. Observing, with a sidelong glance, the cool look Anthea sent his way, Elerian poured himself a mug of wine and took himself off to a corner of the room. When Anthea left the fireplace for a moment, he casually strolled over to stand by Ascilius, who looked up at him warily.

“Why isn’t she mad at you?” demanded Elerian softly.

“I told her a wasp stung me,” whispered Ascilius in a smug voice. “Everyone knows how ill-tempered they are at summer’s end.”

“And she believed you without seeing the welt?” asked Elerian quietly, his voice full of amazement.

“Of course,” replied Ascilius complacently. “When I told her that it was in a place not fit for her delicate eyes, she said that she would rather not look at it.” Shaking his head at the injustice of the world, Elerian retreated to his corner again, consoling himself with his wine as Anthea continued to treat Ascilius like a favorite uncle while casting nothing but frosty looks in his direction.  

When everyone finally sat down to eat at the heavy wooden table in the center of the room, thunder rumbled through the heights around the valley, and bright forks of lightning leaped down to strike the peaks. The cold rain falling outside became heavier, but inside the Elf home all was snug and dry, and the storm was barely audible to the members of the company. After partaking of roast venison, majum sliced and fried to a golden brown, chestnuts baked in the fire, and wild grapes, they took their chairs and set them around the fireplace, bringing their mugs of wine and beer with them. Elerian sat warily on Anthea’s left side, saying nothing for she still seemed cool towards him.

 “Tell us what happened after you and Elerian left us, sister?” asked Dacien, breaking the silence. In her clear voice, the colored flames of the fire playing across her fair features, Anthea began to relate the particulars of the pursuit by the licantropes. Certain details, like the changelings’ unnatural ability to track Elerian and his use of the armband elicited quite a few comments and speculations from her companions, but being greatly wearied as well as comfortably fed and mellow from the spirits they had drunk, each member of the company soon sought out a bed when the tale was done, leaving only Elerian sitting alone in melancholy silence by the fire, for Anthea had sought her blankets with the rest after ignoring him all evening.

The next morning the rain stopped, the sun came out, and a warm breeze blew up from the south. Thinking that it might be wise to stay out of Anthea’s sight for a time, Elerian spent the next two days exploring the valley with Forian at his side. Reaching as far as the head of the valley, where the stream began as a spring gushing from a sheer cliff, they found no more hidden places, and no other way into or out of the valley because of the sheer cliffs which surrounded it. Their explorations did yield one good result, however, for on the second day they returned with another spotted buck to add to their food stores.

When they arrived at the edge of the glade by the back door of the Elf dwelling, Elerian and Forian found Anthea sitting cross-legged on the turf-covered bank of the stream that ran through the center of the small meadow. After greeting Anthea, Forian went inside with the buck, but Elerian lingered in the glade, trying to think of something to say that might warm Anthea toward him again.