Winterhorn (Tokens Of Benevolence Book 1)

by Nicolae Ovidiu Baiculescu

  “How do you know it?” I asked.

  “Oh, I…” he interrupted himself briefly, “it’s a long story.”

  There was sadness mingled with bright sparks of joy reflected in his eyes. His wrinkled and honest face seemed less happy than before as he moved his fingers over the knife. A sad expression overwhelmed with ease his brief moment of elation.

  “These are things that are far more valuable than silver, gold or any other precious metals and stones,” he explained. “They go beyond human nature and our ability to comprehend. Objects that can heal wounds, cure diseases, make you stronger, taller or even younger, and also can make you walk faster.” A faint smile curved upon his lips as he looked at me.

  “Do you know what the boundless mark means?” I ignored his remark.

  “Once I thought I did. I saw one many years ago and I thought I’d never see one again before my time arrived,” he said with a candid smile. “Where did you get it? Does it have a name?

  He must have noticed my hesitation.

  “Not to worry, if this is indeed a true token then it’s useless in my hands,” he said hurriedly.

  “It belonged to my grandfather; he named it Winterhorn. Though, as of what it does or if it still does anything, I’m totally unaware.”

  “This is a very lucky day for me, lad. A lucky day indeed. Here!” He handed it to me with both his hands. “And I would very much like to hear its story and hopefully shed light on some of the questions you might have. However, I do not know where Naghnatë is, and that is the plain truth.”

  I sighed. He appeared honest to my eyes. If he could not help, then all I could do was return to the village and try to find a better way. Perhaps, the elders knew more and they could point me in a different direction. Curiously, I was reluctant to leave the place just yet. There was something about his words that made me want to know more.

  “How does one know when or if a token still has powers?” I decided I’d spend a little more time with him.

  “Oh, their powers never fade, only their masters’ will and strength to yield them does!”

  The revelation ignited my hopes, not that I had actually tried to understand what the knife did, but to me it still felt and looked like a butcher’s knife.

  “Before you ask anything else, why don’t we walk towards my home and you recount me everything you’ve seen about the fire?”

  His invitation to impart whatever he knew was something I could not refuse.

  The long walk inside a forested hilltop, soothed my spirits. After having recounted the events again, I felt uneasy and saddened. I had no desire to relive the vivid and painful memories and, at times, I could still feel the scorching heat brushing against my face. Surprisingly, he said nothing more after I was done. His silence loitered, in tandem with my aching soul.

  The sun had lost its early intensity and allowed the clouds to gather and impart a feeble rain. Small drops of water pattered above our heads, though inside the forest, few drops managed to reach us. They were patterning erratically on the surface of the many rivulets’ water and on the sodden ground, where the leaves above allowed them to penetrate. I counted at least three little veins of water on our way up; they descended the mountain with haste, trickling their perennial presence with weak sounds.

  When I thought there was nowhere else to climb, we turned to the right side and soon after reached an opening on the tip of the peak. It was not a very tall mountain, yet it was quite steep and my knee was starting to feel the strain.

  His house was rather narrow and tall, with two floors and odd-looking chimneys with no visible shingles on the brown wooden roof. Its walls had been painted a duck’s egg green, which was nothing one would see in Sallncoln, but I did not mind it at all. On the ground, all around the house, there were pumpkins of all sizes, shapes and colours and on almost every single one of them there were candles; some almost melted to the bottom and some longer than my forearm. A tall and wide, old oak tree shadowed the house. It blanketed the ground surrounding it with many leaves that, up here, were already starting to fall.

  Near the house there was a small stable where a beautiful black horse and two goats were enjoying some hay. There were some chickens and a pair of geese and everything around the place was clean.

  “This place is beautiful!” I exclaimed.

  “Thank you kindly! I like living this high. It gets cold most times of the year, but I’ve plenty of wood. Now, fasten your horse and come round the house, we should eat something. I caught I nice trout last evening, before learning there were intruders on my lands.” He chuckled.

  I did as bid and then reached him behind the house where everything was made of grey rock, including the table, the long benches to its sides and the fireplace itself. The only bit made out of wood, was a sturdy structure that roofed the table for wet days.

  “I could do with a hand on peeling some potatoes,” he said.

  The sack of potatoes was already near the table, and I took the opportunity to use the knife. Confirming my initial impression, its weight was unmatched; I could move it with tremendous ease, almost like a feather and the agility with which I handled it was far uncommon to my skills. It was as if the knife moved of its own accord, guiding my hand and correcting my actions.

  “In they go, lad!” Alaric placed a wide cooking pot on the table and was waiting for me to add the chopped tubers.

  The cleaned trout, salted and covered in herbs was garnished to perfection and everything went inside a special aperture to the side of the stone-stove.

  Our lunch was ready in a flash; there was bread, cheese, wine for him and water for me, and the fuming trout with the melting potatoes.

  “Since the dawn of time,” the old man broke the silence, “when Drakhahouls soared the sky and walked the Earth, humans and animals lived a very different life; a peaceful life. There were unspoken rules and hierarchies and men and mighty beasts were equals and rulers of all. Every species would do their part for the benefit and prosperity of the both. Humans would build cities, invent new machineries to aid and alleviate the hard labour that the earth required, cultivate the lands and grow cattle to feed themselves as well as the mighty dragons. The dragons would share their wisdom, knowledge and protection, for there had always been evil forces trying to separate the two. They lived in harmony and thrived beyond imagination. Such was the bond between them that the dragons started to share the most precious of their obscure secrets. And it was in such times that the wisest of the Drakhahouls –”

  “Irridae-the-Brave!” I said, convinced of my knowledge.

  “He-he!” he chuckled, still chewing on a big chunk of the trout’s tender meat, “Irridae-the-Brave was not even born in that time, lad. This goes further back in time than you can imagine. No, the wisest dragon, as the true-tales recount, was called Algudrin-the-Bold, the bold being given specifically for this cause, because nobody had ever dared to share this much knowledge with humans – which in all honesty are far inferior to Drakhahouls. He was a forest dragon. His scales were of the brightest green, his eyes a burning orange. A strong and fearful creature he was, but he had a weakness; he wanted humans to be as perfect as dragons. Their alliance had always thrived even though there were moments when humans would reach their limitation in comprehension; things that for dragons were plain as day would not make sense to humans and that was because of the impossibility and limits of humankind, to think clearly. At least, that was what the dragon thought, so he decided to impart some of his knowledge to his best human friend Medoris, a master builder. He tried teaching and educating him in any possible way a dragon knew, for as you know dragons were capable of spoken words as well as communicating with their minds. It was as if Medoris were a new-born baby incapable of fully understanding what was said to him. For many years Algudrin tried and persisted in his endeavour and for the same amount of years he failed. But one day a witch came to him – as this was not a secret anymore, Algudrin had consulted many wise dragons and dragone
sses and news had spread – and this witch offered to aid his cause. She offered to impart a method where knowledge could be shared from Drakhahouls to humans.” Alaric paused to lick his oily fingers in a cacophony of gratifying sounds, unpleasant to my ears.

  “I see,” I added.

  “So she told the dragon to willingly incise his own skin and allow a few drops of his blood fall on a simple river stone that would be later used by his human friend. Though he would have to pay attention and decide what sort of knowledge his blood should share. And so the dragon did. Willingly, he spilled a few drops from a painless cut, and the human, Medoris soon became a wiser man. He crafted himself a necklace which held the stone inside – the Blood-Stone – and soon he started to understand and read the dragon’s mind like he never had before. He was even able to control natural elements like light and water. Of course the dragon had only transferred some of his vast powers, and that was more than enough to contaminate the frivolous mind of humankind. Medoris achieved many great deeds and built some of the ancient cities that still hold today, many of which are still to be discovered, yet in time people turned envious of him and started to desire what the master builder had achieved. Great kings and queens of many races were willing to pay mountains of gold to get their hands on the stone or anything similar, and many times had they tried to get it, not listening to reason nor considering that in their hands it would be useless. Who would’ve imagined that such a pure gesture of friendship and benevolence would one day become the downfall of the friendship between Drakhahouls and humans?”

  Another long lick.

  “Medoris had lived a long and marvellous life and his death sentenced the blissful alliance between men and dragons to a cruel and sudden end. After his death, his two sons started to fight over the priceless artefact causing the death of one by poisoning and the banishment from the lands for the other. The Blood-Stone still held powers entrapped in its core for the direct descendants of Medoris, so the banished son soon became a powerful ruler of the lands he had fled too. Alas, the dragons were torn apart. Many had never agreed in first place to Algudrin’s determination of sharing the sacred knowledge and now they had the reason to exile the dragon too from their fraternity. They condemned him to a solitary life away from his kin. Alone and abandoned to fate, Algudrin tried for many years to find the son of Medoris and convince him to put an end to this unfortunate affair but he managed to avoid and escape the dragon. When Algudrin picked up a trail, the son of Medoris was always a step ahead and so, in time, was the Blood-Stone lost. Nobody knows where the stone is or if it still exists, though many have tried to find it and none have succeeded,” he concluded.

  Luckily for me, he had no more fingers to lick.

  “And what if one found the stone, would its powers be of any use to a new master?” I asked.

  “That is a very good argument. The answer is yes and no. If the one that finds it is a direct descendant then yes, it might work, if not it won’t, unless one was a wizard or a witch. You see, the beauty of humanity’s slow minded nature is that in time thinkers and wizards had found ways of binding the will of these artefacts and make them respond to a new owner, with altered powers, but they could work nonetheless!” He stopped and gulped some wine.

  I took the time to wet my dry lips with the water that he had poured in my mug.

  “Centuries have passed and the Blood-Stone turned into a simple story, much like the ones you’ve probably heard already. Luckily, the original connection between man and beast did not easily fade. Eventually other animals, under different circumstances of threat, danger, friendship, had decided to gift tokens of benevolence to humans and I think this has to do with the Blood-Stone as well. I am most confident about my theory,” he pushed his head closer to me as in trying to conceal his words, “when Algudrin-the-Bold made the first stone, he transferred some of his powers, unwillingly, most certainly, to the realm of which he was part of, the beasts, the animals of all kind, and so, this power now lies within every single breathing beast; the power of benevolence.”

  “Oh,” I murmured, thinking of the stag that Winterhorn was part of.

  “Of course, it takes some wits about the animals to be able to do it. I don’t suppose frogs are able to make anything else than croaking in the ponds. Perhaps they do, who knows?” He placed a spindly finger on his lower lip and turned his head toward the cloudy sky as if pondering what he just said.

  He murmured something to himself and for a while he started moving his hand on his long beard.

  “Bah! I’d like to see that,” he said all of a sudden turning his eyes on me.

  There was no point in trying to enquire about his lost thoughts, so I patiently waited for him to continue.

  “The wizards and the witches had always had their hands in these matters, and for such they have always desired the stones, some for good and candid reasons such as understand their true nature and comprehend more about the worlds from which the Drakhahouls arrived, but many for the simple desire of power and governance. Medoris and his deeds had been almost forgotten when Irridae-the-Brave gifted the Lux-Stone to Loreeia, queen of the elves, many, many centuries later. And nobody truly knows how many artefacts have been granted, or what powers they held and where they could be found. Only the dragons can sense them as they are the forefathers of these tokens.” There was sadness in the old man’s voice, his passion and excitement brusquely fading with his words.

  “Alas, Drakhahouls have been gone for centuries,” I added.

  He started laughing loudly, his eyes turning to slits. “No they aren’t, they’re only well-hidden and out of our reach, but I know exactly where to find them!”

  The Boundless Mark

  Lorian

  Alaric’s revelation put an end to our copious early-meal. His words rung stridently in my head and I could barely contain myself from demanding more details. Nor could I decline his demand of help when he asked me to give him a hand cleaning and preparing the table for making bread – a custom he repeated every two or three days during the week.

  “If you will, would you fetch a bit of flour from inside?” he asked once the table was cleaned. “There’s a coffer behind the door to your left. You’ll find two jute-bags with white flour and a bowl already in one of them. There’s also a sieve somewhere, use it and sift the bowl full to the edge and bring it here,” he said, determined on rekindling the fire.

  Once through the main entrance of his house, I was startled to find it completely different than what I imagined. What initially had been a kitchen, was now a lecture room with very few spots occupied by common things like jars, pots and cooking tools. The rest of the space was home to scrolls, quills, inkwells, books, maps and tomes. The table hadn’t been used to dine upon in a long time as indicated by the colourful set of goose-quills and papers that lay, spread across its surface. Other parchments were set on the chairs as well as on the floor. I dared not touch anything even if I was intrigued to check what one of the maps on the table was bestowing. Its bulk was held in place by heavy, smooth river-stones and tiny wooden sculptures of horses and towers.

  I found the two sacks of flour and started sifting it into the bowl, but my eyes were elsewhere.

  A slanted writing of beautiful letters at the top of a parchment spelled ‘The Aranthian Empire’ in the common language. Underneath, right at its centre there was a big, white castle with five towers that had red coloured roofs. Masterfully drawn on top of it, in black ink, was a Drakhahoul symbol outlined with its bat-like wings and flame coming from his mouth and nostrils, its size wider than the entire citadel. From all the names written on the parchment many had cross or circle marks in red ink; Dolbatir, Callanor, Mount Nrom, Hulverion, Myrth, Grora, Thull, Doradhur, Rontra, Velkeri and many others. Besides the forests, rivers, mountains and lake symbols there were other black ink scribbles, indicating quick and rushed notes freely placed across the yellow tinted map with various orientations. Of all the location names, almost at the edge of
the paper, one was encircled with both red and black ink and it said, ‘Elmenor’ and something written underneath in a language I did not recognise. I interrupted my task and craned the head closer to it, trying to make up the shapes.

  Sadly, the old man’s voice called from outside, “What’s taking you so long, lad? Want me to come get it, myself?”

  “Found it!” I yelled back, brushing off the bits of flour I unwittingly spread on the map.

  With the clear image of the map still in my mind, I joined him by the fireplace. He was already set on making the dough, the water bucket, salt, and oil at his disposal.

  “I started as a very young lad to look for her,” he started, with the briefest look at my face and a quick gesture to snatch the bowl from my hands. “I was born in the big northern city of Dolbatir, very far from here, high north. Beyond that place lie the unknown and untravelled seas. Naghnatë, as I came to understand much later on, travelled to spread these tales, that many had believed to be mere children stories. Though, they aren’t!” He shifted his position, the bowl was moving on the table.

  I extended my hands and held it.

  He continued swiftly, “She arrived with a group of merchants from Arkhanthï, looking to trade for our goods with their leather merchandises; bags, garments skins and boots, and all sorts. Yet, one could tell she was foreign to trading as she barely considered any living soul during her trades. Only once dusk had descended upon the city and the market had broken on the fifth and last day, that she had lit the fires and started recounting her tales. It was a custom of the merchants, see, always to celebrate the ending of their trading with a big feast. It was on such a day that I saw her, and I recall it as if it happened yesterday. And what has haunted me for all these years was not her enticing voice or the depth of her story, but the look on her shabby old face.” Alaric paused.