Although keen to know more about the dragons, I was also curious to hear more about the witch.
“She stopped and stared me as if she were talking only to me. It felt like her voice could touch my mind against her words, which were directed to all of us. I knew I had to find her the moment she laid eyes on me. I was young and wanted to achieve great deeds, just like everyone else. And just because it was me she had looked upon, it made me feel I was different and more important than the rest. I’ve always had this liveliness and strength about my convictions that I couldn’t see in others, and I knew that was my call. Alas, you see what good it did.” He pointed his sticky hand to his figure.
“Is it true that she is very old? Nana says she’s at least three hundred years old.”
“Well, so she said. I think her story is always the same, even if the purpose is unknown, more reason for me to enquire, so I considered. It took me a while to overcome my fears and finally decide to change my life, and only a couple of months after the tradesmen had arrived in Dolbatir, I departed in the search of the witch. Me and the family’s horse, Fleck. First, I went west, towards the city of Callanor, a seaport populated with many foreign folks and peculiar people. I never quite fancied that place to be honest, the sole place where one can find means to travel towards the western worlds. To my displeasure, I was only able to learn that the traders had left the month before my arrival and they were headed south, to the peaks of mountain Nrom. Now, Mount Nrom, if you have read your stories, has been occupied by a dwarfish colony for centuries, and by the time I visited, the king was no other than Hegor Strongfist, the tallest of all the dwarfs I’ve seen.”
“You met the dwarf king of Nrom?” I interrupted him, surprised to hear him mention the name of one of the characters in my grandmother’s tales.
The story had it that Hegor had not achieved his greatness because of his peculiar size, but he had managed to accomplish what no other dwarf had ever dreamed of doing. Born into a poor and simple family, he had gained his right to rule and be king of all dwarfs in the iron mountain of Nrom, by challenging the rightful heir to the throne, who had always been corrupt in his opinion. He had been granted the right to the challenge, though hadn’t been allowed any weapon whilst the rightful heir had picked an axe. Against all odds, he had fought and defeated the oldest son of the defunct king with only few scratches, barehanded.
“I did, as a matter of fact!” continued Alaric, “and not in the best fashion, I might add. Dwarfs have different rules, with which I was not acquainted when I was your age, and if you want to venture on this path, you might as well learn of those you might want to meet, because it could save your skin. I arrived at the mountain of iron on a dire rainy day in spring, and asked the keepers of the gates if I could, in exchange for coin, of course, shelter for a day or two, not wanting them to know my true purpose. They obviously accepted my coin and invited me to the common caves inside the mountains. I get you are familiar that dwarfs are jealous of their homes and secrets and only few outsiders had ever been inside the mountains in those days. That had always been a sacred rule passed on from generation to generation. Yet, they had a problem. Since always reluctant to venture in the open world, preferring the lightless cold rooms of stone to the sunshine on their hairy skins, they were cut from the most common trades of goods so they decided to make their households partially reachable for travellers and traders. This way they could take advantage of the goods being taken to their doors without having to go outside. So with the minimum effort they made a smaller village inside of the mountain secluded from the core of their burrowed dwellings. Generally, these galleries were as big as our common villages on land and had everything one needed but they were confined from the rest of the mountain halls where the king and his people lived. Therefore, shelter for me and my horse was obviously in the common rooms, at a young woman’s wooden-hut. Now that I think about her she was quite nice and kind, and offered definitely cheap lodgings.” His face betrayed a quirky smile.
From his expression, I sensed there was more to the story – a romance perhaps - but my smile must have betrayed my thoughts as he quickly changed his expression and moved on.
“And dammed be my curiosity, I could not keep myself still for too long and after the first day, I started enquiring about the witch, not knowing that the dwarfs would not allow wizards, witches and magical works inside their homes. Soon enough I found out about it, when the word spread that I was looking for trouble. On my third afternoon I was taken by the dwarf guardians to the dungeons, one of the deepest levels of the mountains. It took me days to plead my case to the commanders of the that place and after they realised I was not a wizard I was granted permission to be heard by the king himself, which would decide my fate.” Alaric looked at me and a smile broadened on his face, his eyes wide. “He was every bit as the tales recount; broad shoulders with strong arms and legs and robust hands as big as boulders. He was almost as tall as any given human, and being in his presence only made me shiver in fright. His royal deportment and strong voice only made me shrink under his throne when he had ordered me to serve a full moon of labour in the mines with the other dwarfs that had been punished for various causes, like larceny and other lesser crimes. Later I learned from the guards that my sentence was rather light, since magical issues had always been punished with death by being buried alive within stone – a ghastly practice if you ask me, but they had always believed that this way the mountain would be grateful for the sacrifice and make their realm prosper and thrive.” He shook his old body as if to cast away the shiver of displeasure.
Nervousness showed in his kneading of the dough inside the bowl.
“Those were the hardest days of labour that I have ever endured. A new mine was about to be opened and we were supposed to follow a vein of iron that supposedly lead to an empty chamber of ore deposits. I had food, water and shelter and being young and strong, I could not complain, even if I could not keep up with the laziest of the dwarfs. They seemed to be like ants; tireless, hardworking and it was almost impossible to bend their humour in any situations.” Alaric stopped himself abruptly. “Most importantly, never try to outdrink a dwarf! You’ll be long asleep and probably have awoken back up before they’ve reached their fill.”
I nodded at his advice, almost amused by his worried glare.
“Either way, after the full month of hard work expired, I was to meet the king again. He seemed to look at me in a different light, a more approving manner since there had been no complaints about the duties I fulfilled. The last words I heard from him were that magic was not allowed in his realm and he did not want to have his people stain their minds by those who venture in magic exploration or vague ideas. And in order for me to never forget it, he generously arranged to have my skin marked with everlasting inks. And so, I got myself this.” Alaric slowly lifted the sleeve of his long robe and showed me a dark blue marking on his forearm in a shape similar to an adorned key.
“What does it mean?” I asked staring at the odd shaped mark.
“Outlaw, in dwarfish. This is a reminder that I’m not welcome anymore in the city inside the Nrom mountain as long as he is king, and probably not welcome in any dwarf colony for what I know. I reckon it could’ve gone worse.” He quickly covered his forearm and moved to throw a log inside the stove.
“As a matter of fact, I think it could have gone worse!” I added.
“Indeed, the joy to be free was bigger than any remorse or grudge I could hold against his people. Lucky to escape alive, I didn’t mind the idea of not returning to that cold, grey mountain at all, so I left with all haste. Though, I still hadn’t learned the whereabouts of the witch and so I decided to continue south-east, to Doradhur. And after three weeks’ travels, with only a handful of halts in villages and small towns that I stumbled upon, I reached the mighty city of Doradhur. Little did I know back then that I was about to spend three years in that place! On my very first day, while I enquired for shelter at the alehouse,
I learned of Naghnatë’s whereabouts; confirmed by regular consumers of spirits, and then by common villagers. I had been told that she had come to the city and left after the same five customary days of market, just as she had done in Dolbatir. They mocked and laughed when they spoke of her, as nobody cared nor believed her stories of dragons and wizards; they only considered her a crazy old hag. Yet nobody knew where they were headed, nor did they care.
"Having travelled for so long, I decided to stay for a while, and the next day I started looking for work and ways I could earn some coin to provide for me and my horse. That is when I met Takahok and the very thing that had fed my passion for the dragon stones and the tokens for the rest of my years to come; my first and only token of benevolence!” He paused and drank some water and indicated at my belt. “That and your knife, the Winterhorn, of course. They both share the same mark, lad! The boundless one, it’s unmistakeably somewhere around, and from what I can tell, is not fashioned by the smith who crafts the token, no, it’s fashioned by magic.”
I gaped in awe, thrilled and impatient to have another look at my knife’s mark.
“As I was saying, Takahok was in need of an assistant to tend to his herd on his property which was located just at the edge of the citadel, and I seemed to be the right match from the many listed for the part.”
“What was the token called?” I interrupted.
“Still called, Lorian,” he corrected me by lifting his grubby finger, “its name is the Rose of Ice, and it has this particular name because of the peculiar skills its master had and the uncommon creature it derives from. Takahok is the most experienced hunter these lands had ever seen; I have been fortunate enough to witness it with my own yes. Probably now he’s too old, though he had always been that skilled, long before his token. We became quite close being of similar age and interests, more or less. On many occasions he taught me how to spar with blades and how to draw a long bow. Soon we both joined on hunting trips and it was on one of those days he showed me the Rose of Ice and recounted how he had earned it. It was kept in a special pouch around his belt plated with thin and tough iron sheets. It was a container worth its treasure. The rose was but a fist-full item of a curious transparent object which roughly resembled a rose. Minute ice-splinters darted outwards all over its surface, which even if they appeared delicate, they weren’t. It was of the brightest white, sparkling with its own light as if made of snow and ice that never melts. Inside, there was a tusk of a fox that he had chased for many years, and when he had finally caught and killed it, the fox’s spirit had appeared and congratulated him for being the only human in centuries able to capture the essence of the winter foxes. It was then that it had offered its token of benevolence; a magically crafted rose, fashioned from the very ice where the lifeless body was laying,” Alaric explained.
I squealed with marvel.
“He told me that its powers gave him unhuman strength, him and him alone – making my hopes of having one of my own, instantly die. These powers, he said, manifested especially in winter by sharpening his wit, stealth, sight, smell and stamina as well as resistance to the cold, this being one of the strengths of the winter white-foxes. I have witnessed him hunting and I can tell you it was a sight for sore eyes. He ran as fast as a hare and anticipated almost every move of his prey; it was something I could never tire watching. Almost unfair for the poor animals that never managed to escape. Yet, he was a fair man and a good soul, he never abused his powers nor did he take from the forest more than he needed. He often went against those that did not respect nature and abused the power of their ingenious machineries to hunt and kill almost to extinction entire colonies of boars, rabbits and deer."
"Perhaps that was the reason the winter fox had chosen him…" I started but got interrupted.
“Precisely so! A guardian of the forest of a pure and uncontaminated spirit." He added. "With that, obviously, came a lot of envy and he earned many enemies in exchange. In all conscience, to me it looked like a simple object, of course of very fine craftsmanship and uncommon beauty. In all honesty, no powers could be sensed by holding it or just looking at it. Back then I did not know that the objects had to be granted to be of any use, so I started dreaming of obtaining one myself. This late discovery together with the good coin I made in his service, delayed me from my path for two more years, until I came to realise that nothing more could be obtained from my lingering in the city. So I bid my farewells, with plenty of sadness and reluctance to leave a true friend, and decided to proceed north-west, towards Iriath since it was the nearest town, big enough for me to hope I’d be able to learn something about the witch.” He took another sip of water and filled a second cup for me as well.
I thanked him and drank the water, ensnared by his story.
“But to no avail, since as in every other place I visited I was always late by a matter of days, weeks or months and I could not find anything useful about these wretched stones. She had set me upon a goose chase, unwillingly perhaps, although at times I doubted that too.”
“Do you think she might have wanted you to look for her?” I enquired.
“I think she might’ve wanted help on finding the stones. I’ve considered it at length; every time I failed it came to mind. Maybe she was only enlisting oblivious young souls, whom she involved with her glamour and stories. Eventually one of us could fortuitously stumble upon a stone at some point,” he replied.
His words rang in my years for a while and my face most surely betrayed my obvious concern; I could see it upon his frowned forehead.
“Oh no, do not disquiet yourself! I’m in no cahoots with the witch or anyone else. And even if I were, I’d not know where to find her, nor do I have an interest in giving her your token. It’s not mine to give!” he assured me.
“For a moment I thought it was all a trap,” I confessed.
“Bladder, no! Not while I still have my wits about me. At any rate, I doubt I was alone in this, there must be others. All the villages and cities she visited over the years; I doubt it was only me that fell for it. It can’t be! That seed she planted in my ears with her story, was growing inside my mind. It was like a sickness that I carried everywhere I went, one that sporadically liked manifesting its presence with raw bursts of reinvigorated energy.”
I did not know what to say, or if there was anything I could add to aid his troubled expression.
“I was lost. For many days I did not know where to start again, having stayed too long in Doradhur. Luckily, everything was about to change; a lad in Iriath, one of the workers of the market, mentioned that he was sure Naghnatë had lived in Arkhanthï for a long while and most likely someone there might be of help. I never known anyone that ventured that far north. For the people in Dolbatir, Arkhanthï was as far north as anyone has ever dared venture.”
I gulped some more water while Alaric paused briefly to recollect his thoughts, his hands slowly bending and poking the dough.
“Odd, old tales recounted the same thing; the citadel was not a hospitable and friendly place where everyone was accepted and as such, nobody cared or dared going there. The tales mentioned that few were those that managed to get access and the same tales recounted that none of them ever returned. Yet I did not care at the time. It was my sole option so I had to see it with my own eyes.” He chuckled, passing his hand between his wispy beard. “Travel itself was an arduous task. I had plenty of resources and much coin from Takahok’s service, but few were those willing to aid me in my journey even for my precious gold. The farther I ventured the fewer people I met. Undoubtedly the weather did not help for anyone to easily settle comfortably and live a decent life, but I still consider that weather alone was not the cause for such desolation. I carried on and together with Fleck, after weeks of travelling and getting lost in the vast, desolate and cold planes, we made it to Arkhanthï.” Alaric filled his lungs with fresh air and took a long exhale before continuing. “The walls surrounding the citadel and the gates are so high you can barely s
ee the tips of the tall structures from underneath their shadow. The citadel is built upon a high rocky peak and all around it there are shallow hills and small patches of bush woods and, to one side, a dark-green and tall forest. The closest mountain one could climb and look upon the castle is too far out to be able to make out anything inside. I was convinced for many years that something was happening in there, and as hard as I tried, I never managed to gain entrance. The human guards at the gates never listened to my motives, they just forced me to leave!”
I could see his frustration still consuming him after all this time. He manifested it with a series of hard punches in the dough.
“I made several attempts to gain access, thinking that different guards might be reasonable enough to let me in. It never worked. They all followed the same instructions not to let anyone pass the gate. So I decided to linger nearby to see if that was true. I should have known better; camping outside in the nearest, small blotch of birch trees, was a harsher task. Odd forces were continuously coercing me out and prevented me from staying. I could not light a fire! The wind seemed to be working against me and against all odds it’d come out of nowhere to kill my fire, even on the sunniest day. The beasts inside seemed reluctant to accept my intrusion too. There were no big animals, fortunately for me, yet the swarm of small birds and beasts made all sorts of interminable noises whenever I tried to sleep. I’ve also lost my horse, my Fleck! My fine and stubborn Dolbatir breed.”
I swallowed nervously, the tension in his words made me wonder what the situation must’ve been like for him.
“My first night there, I ran away after only few hours; scared and frightened of that evil place. Though, I was not that easily downbeat. The following night I convinced myself to try again. I did last longer, but I wasn’t able to last the full night, neither awake nor asleep. With few other attempts that followed during those weeks, I had the same number of failures, and without my horse and almost without any food left, I felt less convinced of my plans. So I left for Liarhï, few days south of Arkhanthï, which without my horse took me six entire days. I was certain I could learn more about the citadel and the people that lived inside from there. To my surprise this woeful town was almost as inhospitable as the forest itself. A ruthless ruler had everyone subdued and almost poisoned me. If it hadn’t been for a lovely young lady that took my young, good looks to her heart and eyes, I would’ve died then and there.”
Winterhorn (Tokens Of Benevolence Book 1) Page 9