Zellohar

by Chris A. Jackson

  "Well, I must admit you have piqued my curiosity about this keep and its history. Does this book mention that?" Shay asked, steering the conversation back on track. "Unless, of course, you feel it is a treasure of your heritage and therefore private."

  "Treasure? Aye, laddie, 'tis a treasure, but not like you think! It's the diary o' the royal line o' kings o' Zellohar. Some of the folks back home might be wantin' to see it, but pretty dry readin' to yer thinkin', I'd imagine," he said, browsing through a few of the well-preserved pages. It was not quite what he had anticipated, but still, it was history. "Filled with a bunch o' details about what mineral was found where, how much the flatlanders paid fer cut stones and the like. Ah, here's somethin' that's bound ta be o' use; some o' the pages are maps o' the different levels."

  "Any information on the battle for the keep?" Avari asked, peeking over the book's rim to scan the diagrams.

  "Hmmm, let me see here." DoHeney turned toward the end of the volume, thumbed through the pages, then slowed.

  "Well now, that's interestin', the writin' changes here. Let's see if it says why. Ah, here we are."

  My faithful scribe JonDonley fell today in an ambush. The beasts attacked us while High Priest FinGalin was placing the final wards upon the Tombs of the Ancients. The ceremony was interrupted and FinGalin was greatly angered; needless to say, that band of creatures was destroyed. We had not realized that any of the scum had crossed the gorge.

  JonDonley was laid to rest within the tomb; he has earned the honor and the peace. We are already preparing to evacuate this last level and will try to hold the hoard below until the gems arrive.

  "Now that's right strange. I wonder what gems he means," DoHeney pondered, his interest piqued. "And if this here priest was so powerful, why'd they have to leave at all?"

  "I would guess," Shay volunteered, "that your esteemed priest is one of the skeletons in this chamber. Look farther back. See if the book reveals the nature of the evil."

  DoHeney shuffled back several pages. "Here 'tis," he said solemnly, "the beginning of the end..."

  FeHurley's mining troop did not return from their shift. We are hoping there has not been a collapse. A search party has been sent out. We should not be mining this section; the rock is too unstable.

  The search party has returned, but only half. They found no damage to the tunnels, but were attacked by a band of deep-dwelling creatures. FenBenly tried to follow the survivors to locate their lair, but to no avail. We will seal off that shaft.

  DoHeney skimmed pages spanning many months, and found only an occasional reference to additional attacks on mining parties. The crease between his eyebrows deepened as he read the next few passages aloud.

  Something is amiss. The miners are now reporting more frequent attacks. But these are no longer gaunt and desperate prowlers. Fell humans are among them, and they are well organized. And they no longer merely kill; many fine dwarves have simply disappeared. May the Earth Mother preserve them.

  Avari shivered and huddled closer to the others as if for warmth. "They took the dwarves alive?" she whispered. "But, what would—"

  "Lass, ye don't want ta be knowin' what happened to 'em," DoHeney interrupted, his tone sharper than he had intended. He continued.

  Gods of Light help us, it is as I feared. A troop of our best fighters captured a goblin today. It was a messenger, but it knew enough to confirm our suspicions. The creatures of the deep earth are being recruited into a fighting force that grows larger by the day. Denizens of the deepest, dankest caves are answering the call, following promises of plunder and all the havoc they can wreak. But their leader is the most deadly of them all, for he has intelligence and resources. The Nekdukarr, Iveron Darkmist—may his name be cursed by all that is good and pure—is the impetus behind this. He intends to use our Zellohar as his fortress upon the surface. This we cannot allow.

  "Nekdukarr! Intelligence? Fa!" Everyone stared at Shay's outcry. Up to this moment he had been resting on one of the packs. Now he sat straight up and vented his outrage in a most uncharacteristic manner.

  "All those damned, dark-worshiping defects know is pain and death! Decay, death, Nekdukarr! They are all one!" He stopped to catch his breath and Avari pushed him back until he was reclining once more, though still visibly upset.

  "I don't understand," Avari admitted. "What's a nekdu-whatever? Some kind of demon or something?"

  "The Nekdukarr are the paladins of Mortas, the deity of the undead!" Shay spat the name as if it burned his tongue. "They are fell warriors controlled by demons that take the shape of weapons or armor. They seek only to enslave and kill, to ravage and plunder until all is as vile and festering as their own god's soul. They are shunned by all civilized folk."

  "I have heard of these beings," Jundag admitted, a shiver of loathing in his voice. "They ride the flesh-eating horses of the Flaming One, and destroy all they gaze upon. If one of these creatures wished to take this keep, it is a wonder that the dwarves escaped at all."

  DoHeney heard but did not heed his companions' talk. He sat in silence, staring into the gloom around them. His fingers twisted one of his beard's braids as he thought of Mortas' interlocking crescents on the brow of the ogre.

  "DoHeney?" Avari asked. "Is something wrong?"

  "Eh? Wrong? Nay, lassie, jist thinkin' what a horrible battle me folk must o' gone through." His new friends needn't know about the minion of Mortas; after all, it might not mean anything.

  He brandished the book and pointed to a new passage. "Hey now, pointy-ears, listen up. I think this may be more ta yer likin'."

  It has now been eighteen months since this nightmare began. If worse comes to worse, we have devised a fool-proof method of containing this evil and preventing its spread, though it will cost us this keep. The doors on the upper level were designed to close and lock with an enchantment as a defense to keep intruders from entering the lower levels. From below, we could withstand a siege and resupply through the secret passages known only to myself and few others. We have turned the great doors around so they can be locked from above. Everything within the mountain will be in a snare from which there is no possible escape. I have dispatched messengers to the other clans with an appeal to send the cornerstones to empower the spell. The cornerstones are reservoirs of immense magical energy, but it is my hope is that the Nekdukarr Darkmist will not detect the gems as they approach the keep.

  "There!" Shay exclaimed, his cursing of the Nekdukarr now silenced. "The gems he referred to before. The cornerstones; they sound like artifacts of importance, but I have never heard of anything like them in all the books of magic that I have studied."

  Jundag looked at Shay. "Magic? I thought you were a priest! You know how I feel about—"

  DoHeney ignored the bickering men and quickly scanned the few remaining pages. "All right, here is our original passage with poor JonDonley passing away and..."

  They have arrived! The cornerstones are even more beautiful than I imagined. Power seems to surge between them when they are close to one another. We must act quickly; already all manner of misbegotten creatures have escaped into the upper keep. A great beast crawled up and flew out into the courtyard, hopefully never to return. I now take a small group of warriors to lock the doors against this tide of evil. Only with the gems may the doors be closed and locked; only with them may it once again be opened. Four young dwarves wait with small forces to carry the gems far away. The consequences would be dire if they were to fall into the hands of a Nekdukarr. May the Gods of Light watch over us this day.

  DoHeney caught his breath as he finished; he had rushed through the final sentences, eager to discover the outcome. Silence settled as the four contemplated the destruction about them; a finale the king had not foreseen. Avari sighed, a lone tear sliding down her cheek. She wiped it away with a soot-covered hand, leaving a muddy streak.

  "So them are the doors—the ones I can't open—holdin' back all that evil ta this day. Aye, even at the cost o' givin' up suc
h a beautiful keep as this." DoHeney turned to the others with a stern look, but a twinkle in his eye. "I hope you appreciate what my ancestors've done here."

  The remark broke the tension, and the companions smiled and nodded. The world was too beautiful a place to contemplate what may have happened had the evil attained possession of Zellohar, an impregnable fortress from which to wage war.

  "Well," Jundag said as he rose and gathered his arsenal. "Now we know where the attacks on the farms came from. The beasts that escaped before the door was locked have probably been hiding away up here all this time, multiplying like rats. We can report this to the merchant's guild and they will send the militia to clean up any scum that we may have missed."

  DoHeney reverently placed the diary back in its metal box and slipped it into his satchel; his gran-mammy would want to see this. He helped Avari get Shay to his feet and his new-found friends set about preparing themselves for their trip back to Beriknor. It was nice to know that they would ensure that proper steps were taken to rid the keep of its vermin. Who knows, he thought with a sharp twist of hope, perhaps someday dwarves will return to Zellohar Keep. The thought brought a smile to his face and a spring to his step.

  "We have a long way to go to retrace our steps," Jundag pointed out. "We had best be leaving." He started for the door through which they had entered, but was stopped by the dwarf clearing his throat.

  "I believe that if ye jist go through them big double doors there, ye'll find the main hallway ta the outer courtyard."

  Jundag glared at the dwarf. "And how might you know that, my dwarven friend?"

  Avari and Shay laughed and said in unison, "He was born here!"

  Avari's mood was buoyant. They had accomplished their task, aided by a new friend, and she had learned the dark but inspiring history of this beautiful keep.

  There is more good than bad in the world, she thought. Her faith in this principle had been sorely tested of late, and she was relived to find that she once again believed it.

  Beyond the ravaged doors a wide corridor stretched on into darkness, arches set at the same precise intervals they'd seen upon entering the keep. DoHeney assured them that the exit lay at its end. Still wary, lest more creatures were lurking about, they started down the hall. There were no torches or braziers here, so Shay and DoHeney, with their superior vision in the dark, led the way. Avari and Jundag followed, a thin streak of light from her partially sheathed dagger guiding their steps.

  Suddenly, an odd choking noise sent a shiver up Avari's spine. She and Jundag froze them in their tracks. The noise came again, something halfway between a curse and a sob. Avari drew her dagger, and the warriors peered through the gloom.

  DoHeney stood as still as the rock that surrounded him, gazing into the shadows of an alcove. But it was his face that struck her as frightening. Instead of a smile, horror twisted his features into a rictus mask.

  "What's wrong?" Avari asked, panic welling up. She readied her sword as she raised the dagger to illuminate the passage the dwarf was pointing at with a shaking hand.

  The radiance penetrated the gloom, the light dancing over the silver runes inlaid on the walls of what appeared to be another corridor. When she looked more closely, she realized her mistake. The runes decorated two massive doors that opened into a dark stairway leading down.

  "The doors," DoHeney croaked, his face pale with fear. "By the Maker, they're open!"

  CHAPTER 22

  No," Jundag said, folding his massive arms. "We will not explore the lower levels and attempt to recapture these magical gems. It is foolish to believe we could succeed. We are only four; they could have an army down there."

  "Which is all the better, lad," DoHeney insisted, resolve having replaced his horror at the discovery. "They won't be expectin' anythin'! Surprise is always the best part o' any plan."

  The tribesman glared down at the short figure. "Why should we believe you anyway? You lied about Mortas' symbol you found on that ogre, and you could be lying about this. You're the only one able to read the book. For all we know, it is a cook book and you are making this whole story up." The dwarf snorted, but Jundag continued. "How do we know that this is not a plot to lure us into the deeper caverns?"

  "Oh, yes, that's it!" DoHeney confessed, his ruddy cheeks flushing even redder. "And what do ye suppose I plan ta do when we get down there? Overcome ye all with me bare hands? Hold ye at dagger point?"

  "You could have accomplices waiting below," Jundag suggested. "Maybe the dwarves never actually left here. Maybe you all went mad. You are unlike any dwarf I have ever met. You laugh, you joke. You must have bad blood—"

  "At least I don't have bad breath!" DoHeney retaliated, puffing up his cheeks.

  Jundag loomed over the dwarf, flexing his hands and imagining them around the little fellow's neck. If daunted by the sheer size and strength of the bigger man, DoHeney gave no indication. He stood with his hands on his hips, fuming up at the larger man. Finally Shay intervened.

  "Let us be objective, realistic and logical about this," he said as he held his hands up in a peaceful gesture.

  "There is nothing logical about attacking an army of monsters in their own lair!"

  "Would ye rather they attacked innocent—"

  "Quiet!" The authority in Shay's voice silenced them, although Jundag still felt like throttling the dwarf. "We will discuss this rationally and make a decision. Avari!" he called softly down the stair. She poked her head around the curve where the stair began to spiral down. At Shay's gesture, she ascended to where the others huddled in the alcove.

  "I could hear you clearly," she admonished, "and so would anything else coming up. But at least we'll hear them, too."

  "Good. Then we will talk here, but keep a sharp ear." Shay chose a far corner of the alcove and sat down in the shadows, his back to the smooth wall. "I am still fatigued. If you do not mind..." He indicated the floor around him and the others took their seats, Avari sitting between the two warring factions.

  "From what we may surmise from the king's diary, someone has recovered the gems and used them to liberate the evil held within this mountain," Shay said. "If that is true, then we must assume the Nekdukarr Darkmist now possesses the gems, and that, in fact, the dwarf king's greatest fear has come true. Now, if Darkmist can wield that power..." Shay's pause hung in the air like shroud, as they all considered the implications of such might in the hands of a Nekdukarr.

  "And from the recent attacks on the farms, he appears to be continuing where he left off ninety or so years ago. Which places us in an awkward position. We can either attempt to steal the gems ourselves, or we can take the days needed to go back to Beriknor, warn them, hope that they believe us and wait while they debate and argue and generally waste time deciding what to do. At which point it may be too late."

  "Oh, what a wonderfully impartial, logical point of view!" Jundag exclaimed.

  Shay shot him a cold look. "In my opinion, it is our duty to attempt to recover the gems." Shay held up a hand to ward off any protests or endorsements. "Everyone will have their say, but the reason for my decision is twofold: First, we must not give the Nekdukarr Darkmist time to learn how to channel the power of the cornerstones for his own uses. Second, I believe that what DoHeney said earlier is correct; a small group may have a better chance of sneaking in and locating the gems. So far it does not seem that an alarm had been raised. However, once they discover the intrusion, it will be impossible to take them by surprise or force, considering the impregnability of this keep."

  "What about the secret passages?" Jundag asked. "We could scout them out—"

  "Why would ye have secret passages if they could be found so easily?" DoHeney retorted. "Of all the—" The rest of his comment was muffled by Avari's hand covering his mouth.

  "It is all right, Avari. DoHeney, what are your reasons for pursuing the gems?" Shay asked.

  "You already said me reasons, elf, although I could have put forth a more passionate argument for..."
>
  "Avari. Please."

  "...a selfless mmmfffgghh." The woman's hand once again cut off the dwarf's chatter.

  "DoHeney, we understand your position, but we simply do not have time to listen to it all now," Shay said. "Jundag?"

  "I think we should get out of here now!" he insisted. "We can warn Beriknor and they can take care of the problem. They can bring an army. We were not hired to sacrifice ourselves, only to scout and report back."

  "How can you say that?" Avari finally broke her silence, looking to Jundag with a cloud of disappointment darkening her features. "This is a threat to the entire world we know. I don't know much about this Nekdukarr or his ambitions, or how he could even still be alive after so long inside a mountain, but it doesn't sound like he'd be content with one town and a few farms. You understand that senseless death is wrong. You walked away from it once. If you walk away from this, then you'll have learned nothing from the chief's daughter."

  Jundag stared at Avari in astonishment. He had expected to argue with the others, but he had assumed that she would be on his side. He looked into her eyes and saw that he had lost. The anguish of pointless death hit close to her heart, and she would follow her heart wherever it took her to ease that pain.

  The tribesman raised his last desperate argument. "Very well, but how do you know this dark paladin is still alive, or that he could even use these gems?" He laughed shortly. "I have always thought these Nekdukarr to be only legend!"

  "Nay, me lad. Nekdukarr are nothin' of legend and all of a nightmare," Doheney said, his tone deadly serious. "They're the most powerful warriors o' the Dark Gods, and they be well acquainted with magic. They long only ta conquer and enslave the rest o' the world, and with these cornerstones, this 'un will have the power ta do it. Oh, and ye can count on the fact that he's still alive, me big friend. Ye see, Nekdukarr don't die!"