Winterhorn (Tokens Of Benevolence Book 1)

by Nicolae Ovidiu Baiculescu

  With a look of gratification at the sceptre on the floor he refilled his spirit with energy. All of a sudden, he had a plan.

  A smile formed on his face as he realised how easy it would be to reach the citadel and how easy it would be to move unseen once there; shifting for a magic creature such as himself only demanded a small measure of energy. He decided he’d travel to the citadel before returning to the cave.

  As per Naghnatë’s instructions, he found the stash of herbs that she had placed inside clothed bundles and hid underneath the wooden floor and carefully placed them in his bag, while his eyes lingered on the glowing sceptre. Since its discovery, he had become possessive over the sparkling relic and found it hard to part from. He felt it was his.

  “Perhaps you’ll come in handy if things go amiss!” he whispered.

  There was a certain trace of fear in his low voice as he squeezed his fingers around the bone-like handle. But it soon disappeared with the transitory tingle of energy that sprouted through his arm, knowing he had vanished from sight. The feeling empowered his determination of what he was about to do and he dropped the sceptre inside the bag to get ready to depart.

  A final check around the messy hut, patterned with lots of dirty, kitchen utensils, allowed him to compose himself and shift again; which he did with a cunning smile on his face.

  “I shall see you soon, Felduror!”

  Quick

  Felduror

  The towers’ bells struck midnight and Felduror was still in the eastern library of the thirtieth floor. Similar to countless nights of the past years, he’d spent the quiet hours of the dark eyeing through his scrolls and tomes. The search had become obsession centuries ago, though of late his desperation had ascended to such a state that he started contemplating the idea of concocting a potion that would negate his need for sleep.

  “If only it were that simple,” he mumbled hoarse words while passing his thin fingers over endless rows of foreign scribbles and markings.

  Even the Golden Edel, or eideilamirë as the elves called it, the rarest and most potent of herbs rumoured to give eternal life and eternal vitality, hadn’t been able to provide what tales claimed it would – he had ventured further east than any living man, elf or dwarf had ever been; at the edge of the earth, in the heart of the remote eastern islands where Drakhahouls grew wild with no master and no wish to be seen or heard of. Yet, for his failure he hadn’t blamed the plant itself as much as his lack of aptitude when it came to matters of herbs and their preparation. As a celebration of the sacrifices it had taken him to claim the feeble plant, he had conserved the blooming flower between the pages of his favourite book, long past dried as a bone. But that had been many years ago, so many, he had almost forgotten how it felt to be young and strong and ignorant, which was how he described the few young, human guards in his service whenever he deigned to observe them.

  His shadow danced upon the layered scrolls in the yellow light of the candles and his long grey-beard brushed the old, waxed-parchment as he moved his head over the scripts of the one at hand. During his long years, he had mastered every element of nature and had invented hundreds of potions that ranged from healing to killing, none of which had been able to be imitated by his enthusiastic acolytes. However, there were still things he could not attain, nor understand, like these ancient scrolls that deceived him every time. They kept their secrets well-hidden and allowed only one correct interpretation of their meaning at the cost of many injurious misinterpretations. Regrettably, he had to learn the hard way about the many ways in which a transcript could deceive an inexperienced reader.

  It had happened the first time, many years before, when as a young wizard he had let his enthusiasm and naivety get the best of him. Convinced of his knowledge, he had ventured into a hidden cave of a dead volcano that was supposed to be bursting with treasures. Instead he had almost marched towards his own death, when an unknown, ancient beast had lured him and his followers inside and killed nearly all of them. His magical superiority alone had allowed him to survive that day and, after the unfortunate event, he had planned his next moves very carefully – he’d decided that mercenaries and exiles would take risks first, with the promise of gold, though even that hadn’t managed to achieve anything besides a new name for himself; ‘Felduror, the cruel’, for any that ventured in his name met a cruel and sudden end.

  Many years had to pass before he had felt prepared to undertake a quest on his own; a new attempt of another scroll’s interpretation. Fortunately, this time his patience had been rewarded; Lux, the stone of light, had been the first token he had recovered, and the one to amplify his thirst for power a hundredfold. Lux had sealed his destiny and acclaimed his name as the enemy of all, having violated the sacred pact of peace that was held amongst races. It hadn’t been a coincidence that success had come when he had decided to use a Drakhahoul instead of any of the other useless creatures. With that, there had been no turning back for him and the only way to complete control of all races, was by finding what he was looking for before others. The elves had sworn to kill him, only to realise that they couldn’t declare any war against his realm as long as the ruler of the empire was a dragon king. And if the elves couldn’t do it, no one could. The dwarves, well they had no other choice than to retreat. Their propensity to keep for themselves and interact as little as possible with other races had always been renowned. He hadn’t minded at all, allowing them to believe they were in control and well protected deep under their mountains.

  For now, so they can think.

  Humans, on the other hand, had always been divided; almost all of them had writhed from the menace of his growing empire in the north, and not only around Arkhanthï. The northern lands had always been steered by the rules of the most important city, Arkhanthï, and its demand for food and resources and, on very few occasions, he had to use his magic or his orcs to silence a bold action of a feeble revolt. The southern land instead, had never been a threat; the lives of their inhabitants was of such simplicity that it required no major organisation to oversee the flourishment of its own people. The underdeveloped villages were at the state of nomadism and tribal status. There were no kings, no queens and no realms and their authorities were only too easy to be influenced by the recounts that travelled, methodically he’d say, from the north; tales that were aimed to control and keep the ignorant people afraid to venture outside the safety of their homes and lands. They favoured the simple life, where their only desire was to protect their families and nurture their children in a place where everyone had an equal say in the things that mattered. He knew far too well that such a thing was not the right way, a sole ruler is imperative for success and wealth, he’d argue, even more than the people.

  Yet, if ignorant of things that went above their stations, they were a valuable resource for the good of the empire’s prosperity. That’s why he had agreed to the great markets in the plains of Aranthul, that took place every three months. It was the sole opportunity for his chosen men of the north to trade goods with the people of the south, an opportunity to assuage their troubled minds, in case distress and doubt ever found their way in the minds of gullible peasants. It was only for the safety and wellbeing of everyone involved, and it was better they were kept in the dark. And he had managed to do that very well for many decades since his ascent as personal consultant to the king.

  In the night’s silence, the wizard’s past achievements failed to encourage him like they once had, but Felduror felt peaceful nonetheless. The previous night had been worse; the maddened rage had conquered his mind again and in his fury, he had hurt his forearms and fists. He never tolerated himself or another to use magic for healing the bruises caused by his blackout rage and preferred to allow his body to take care of healing itself. The countless scars were kept as a reminder of what his sickness could cause and they provided a good way of measurement to see how worse his derangement had got since he could never remember what transpired during his wraths.

 
; He interrupted his reading abruptly. Fresh drips of blood stained the clean cotton he used as a gauze. Luckily, the redness of his blood compelled him to remove his hand in time from the scroll he was reading. The previous night’s trophy, a rather deep cut on the side of his right hand, was still seeping blood whenever he tried to clutch a fist. It did not hurt as bad as it looked. Most likely he had procured it when he had hit the ancient earthen-urn which served as a lamp, placed next to the door. It was a very solid piece of painted artistry that he had found in one of the deepest caves of the earth and had become one of his few, favourite art forms. Too bad he hadn’t find any time to remove it, as he often had told himself. Now it lay scattered across the room’s cold flagstones in dozens of smaller shards, which he did not know what to do with. He could easily state that the previous night had been the worse so far, and quickly dismissed that thought as his glance lingered on the shattered urn.

  Oddly enough, his troubled mind carried him to Nuuk. Many a time the Iprorim had known how to soothe his soul and allow him to regain full possession of his haunted mind, often at a cost of getting hurt himself. Though the alienated feeling soon faded, allowing space for the eagerness of wanting to return to his scrolls; often a good excuse to interrupt unpleasant thoughts and every time sufficient to lessen the guilt.

  What is this? Am I to grow caring the older I get?

  A vigorous spin of his mantle made all the candles flicker in his wake. The brief interruption only caused more concern as he questioned his capabilities. A long time had passed since his motivation was enhanced by a new discovery and he was afraid he was getting too old, too lackadaisical. He had spent more than a third of his existence looking for the Drakhahoul stones, with very little success since he had only managed to find two of them; the Lux and the Blight-Stone; the latter being given to him, almost willingly, by the dragon king. If he wanted to be the undisputed ruler over the Aranthian empire he’d have to find them all before anyone else, especially those other few that had pledged their lives to searching for the tokens. Luckily, there weren’t many beings devoted to such things. Only five he knew of, three of which had already been taken care of, and two still on the loose – he had paid a fair amount of gold and silver to recruit and send on their tracks his most skilled Gholaks, whose latest reports had been confirmation of the whereabouts of the fugitives. ‘Alive preferably, but dead will do!’ had been the order that he imparted to the hounds that had started the chase. If the confidence and devotion of the orcs had put his mind at ease, their inability and improbability of success had prevented him from concentrating on more important matters; the deciphering of the maps that led to the elusive stones.

  Blinded by self-esteem and confidence, he had initially deployed entire armies in all the four corners of the earth, inside and outside of his empire, only harvesting failure upon failure. It did not matter that more than a third of the regiments sent never returned, having perished by brutal deaths caused by his misinterpretations of the ancient scrolls. He only blamed the incompetence of their chieftains, springing a fierce competition among the entire race when new leaders had to be recruited. Enraged, he had persisted for many years, sending his devastating Gholak warriors and acolytes at the smallest hint of success, only to allow them to pillage and destroy whatever stood in their way with the excuse of bringing back a Drakhahoul stone. Yet failure kept returning at the same pace. His sole consolation being that nobody else knew where they were either, and chances were nobody could ever find them. Where he had failed for so long and with the amount of resources at his disposal no one else stood a chance, except by mere coincidence and luck – though luck seemed to have abandoned the empire’s lands.

  In time, failure had shaped how he distributed his time and resources and a few years back, he had renounced the chase for the dragon stones and devoted himself to finding every other token of benevolence, from the most useless to the most powerful. If the dragon artefacts eluded him, perhaps with the smaller tokens it would become easier. His plan was to find them all and bind them into one single artefact that could become as powerful as a true token. He had also decided to change his approach, having failed with the same method for too long. Instead of the loud and hungry armies, he decided to hire individual expert hunters, exiles with years of expertise in the arts of war and a peculiar ability to track down people. Their races were as varied as their wages and they only bowed to one god alone; gold, which luckily Felduror had plenty of. Word had travelled fast and, around the northern hemisphere, every important town had rumours spreading hastily that King Belrug-the-Black was willing to pay good coin for real information about the tokens. He had struck gold! The first promising results, had arrived right after hiring Rukmirek Anvilhead, a dwarf exile from the colonies of mount Nrom. He and his brother, Nakhuluk, had abandoned his kin after disagreeing with the ways of their king, Hegor Strongfist, and swore never to return as long as he was ruler. Upon their employment, and for a pretty hefty bag of gold, they had revealed precious evidence about the Rose of Ice and its owner, Takahok of Dolbatir; a token that the wizard himself knew nothing about. It had taken them merely a few months to track Takahok down, kill him and take his token to Felduror, even though one of the two brothers, Nakhuluk, had lost an arm in the process. Holding the Rose of Ice in his hands had only amplified his thirst for power and increased his efforts towards the smaller stones. Since then, he had found out about the existence of another seventeen items but was not sure if they still existed or if there were others.

  Luck favours the bold, had been his thinking when in a relatively short space of time he had found himself to be in the possession of five of them. They were hidden in a room he alone knew of, buried below the dungeons and protected by deadly, magic wards. They were; Thenedril, the golden feather, Seh’tari, a ram’s horn, Cinereus, the grey eye of a giant wolf, Iquit, a rabbit’s foot and of course, the Rose of Ice. They were all adorned with the most delicate and exquisite details, and conferred the righteous dexterity to the artists of the regions in which they had been crafted. True art forms of varied kinds, precious objects even to the most ignorant of peasants. Among the five, dearest to the wizard was Cinereus. The wolf eye that had been fashioned into a big ring, far too large for his thin bony-fingers, and that was because its late owner, Ghorimm, had been a dwarf whose hands were almost as big as human shovels – a hard task it had been that day to rid him of his treasure by raw strength as none of the six orcs that accompanied the wizard managed to better the dwarf with either bare hands nor weapons, and he himself had to take pleasure in compelling his enemy to renounce his most precious possession. The ring had the hoop made from the darkest of irons, most likely forged by his kin as no other race engraved with such precision the thin intricacies of the thin loop. Yet the peculiarity stood in the stone itself where a coat of clearest amber surrounded and protected the grey eye making it sparkle as if lit from inside. Many times he had inspected the token with awe, moving with great attention his fingers about the shiny, smooth stone. And every time he found it more beautiful.

  Alas, he knew well that none of the stones had any powers in his hands, or any others’ for that matter. They would solely be useless, striking pieces of jewellery unless he unravelled the magical powers enticed within. Then and then alone, when the spell had been broken, could he bind them all together and take advantage of the powers they’d unleash. Though he still felt unprepared; five was a small number for what he was hoping to achieve and for the moment, the small measures of peace that each visit to the hidden room procured, had to suffice.

  The thought of touching once more the little tokens elevated his spirit, revivifying his pale-skinned face. Underneath the scroll he was studying, a corner of a much darker parchment caught the old wizard’s attention. With a fingernail he lifted the corners of the ones sitting on top and bent his head sideways so could take a peek. It was a map; one he had seen many times before. He pulled it out and gathered it was the same one he had scribbled from, whe
n Nuuk and the dragon Ghaeloden had left for Sallncoln, only that this one had a much more patient stroke of ink and elaborate particulars. The realization brought concern upon his brows and his eyes squinted with bitterness when he recalled that they should have been returned by now. He dropped the dark map on the pile again with a quick gesture and brushed one finger over the word ‘Sallncoln’ one more time. Without even looking, he picked up a hefty, bronze bell from an aperture inside his desk and rang it with drive.

  Only a breath’s moment passed before a minute, thin creature with his head and ears bent revealed itself from behind the accosted door. He was an old Iprorim from north of Grora, one of the very first to be captured by the wizard and his acolytes, and the only one allowed this high inside the tower.

  Many creatures had been brought to the citadel over the years; guards, servants, healers, and very few were allowed to serve inside the main tower. And those that did, were not entirely allowed to move freely to certain floors; they had to earn their trust to reach the highest levels. In the main tower, five old Iprorims had to maintain and serve upon the floors starting the fifteenth upwards, and below the task was given to one alone; Nuuk. None of them knew of the existence of the others and he preferred it that way. The eldest, having been granted permission to the secret rooms of the higher floors, were not allowed to venture neither up nor down from the the floors they were appointed to; everything they needed for survival could be found on those three floors or brought upon request by the wizard’s personal guards. Nuuk, on the other hand, was not allowed to use the stairs upwards, but he was freer than the rest and could serve his master for tasks that required him to leave the premises of the tower.