The Gates of Thelgrim

by Robbie MacNiven

  “My employer tells me that this may be of greater interest to you.” Cayfern removed something from the pocket of his furred cloak, planted it on the table and slid it slowly towards the elf.

  It was a lock, heavy and edged with rust. At a glance, it seemed wholly unremarkable. Shiver looked at it for a while, his black eyes unreadable, then slowly reached out and grasped it daintily between forefinger and thumb, as though it was some strange, slightly disturbing insect. He held it before his eyes and then, to Raythen’s amusement, sniffed it, before placing it back down as carefully as he had picked it up.

  “There are more?” he asked in his cold, dead voice.

  “Two more, both of greater significance than this,” Cayfern said. “If you get the job done.”

  Shiver said nothing.

  “I’m not working with him,” Astarra reiterated, as though the deep elf wasn’t sitting right there.

  “Then that is your loss,” Cayfern said, with an unconcerned shrug. “Both in the present, and in the future. My employer informs me that they likely have further tasks to complete after this one, tasks involving more runeshards. You could learn a great deal from them. Their power is, by all accounts, formidable.”

  Raythen recognized a bluff when he saw one, and right now Astarra wasn’t doing a very good job at it. Cayfern, he knew, was better at those sorts of games.

  “If the contract is of no interest to any of you, I will tell my employer as much, and they will reiterate their call for interested parties to make themselves known,” the big man said, picking up the sack of silver.

  “I’ll consider it,” Raythen said. It was getting late, and he was in no mood for more distractions, not tonight. “In fact, I’ll take the job. But I’m going to need a bigger down payment than the… relatively generous one currently on offer. Your employer clearly appreciates my abilities. They won’t find another Dunwarr dwarf in Frostgate with the skills I possess. No one is better suited to this task.”

  Cayfern looked at him, face unreadable in the guttering light of the tallow candle. Then, he reached into his cloak and drew out another pouch, tossing it onto the table with a clink.

  Good at bluffing, but not that good. Raythen nodded and offered Cayfern a smile.

  “I’ll take the job.”

  “As will I,” Shiver said. Raythen realized he’d slipped the old lock into his robes without him noticing.

  He looked left, at Astarra. The sorceress was glaring at Shiver but, slowly, she forced her gaze back to Cayfern and composed her expression.

  “Tell your employer,” she said, “that the runewitch accepts their terms.”

  “I will,” Cayfern said. “There will be no signed contract. You are expected to be back here with the shard by the first full moon following the Feast of Flames. I will be waiting for you.”

  “That gives us just over two months,” Astarra pointed out.

  “Which should be enough time to journey to Thelgrim, retrieve the shard, and return,” Cayfern said.

  “And if we can’t gain access to the mountains?” Astarra asked. “What if we’re delayed?”

  “Don’t be.”

  “I’ll hold onto these for the time being, just for safe keeping,” Raythen said, breaking the silence that followed Cayfern’s words. He reached across the table and grasped the two pouches of silver. To his surprise, neither Astarra nor Shiver tried to stop him. He forced himself to keep a straight face as he secreted them in one of the concealed pockets of his rucksack. This was going to be easier than he’d expected.

  “Well, it’s been a pleasure catching up, Cayfern,” he said, nodding to the human. “But I should really get back to the bar. I promised Slevchek I’d let him win back his losses.”

  “You really think that’s wise?” Cayfern asked. Raythen rose and offered him a short bow.

  “Would I be worthy of this great undertaking you’ve tasked me with if I said no?” He looked at the other two.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you both, and I look forward to becoming further acquainted over the course of our little expedition. We’re going to have all sorts of fun, I’ve no doubt.”

  “Tomorrow morning, outside,” Astarra said coldly. “I’m leaving with the dawn, whether you’re there or not. I don’t want this to take any longer than it has to.”

  “Don’t worry,” Raythen said. “I think we all share that sentiment.”

  Chapter Two

  Raythen snatched onto the outer sill of the window, doubled over, and was sick against the side of the wall. It left him in a rush of choking, stinking, stomach-churning bile, burning at his throat. He resurfaced, gasping, still clutching onto the window.

  “By Fortuna’s lucky dice,” he managed weakly.

  “Did you even sleep last night?” Astarra asked from behind him, her voice riven with disgust.

  “It’s just a little ritual,” Raythen lied, looking at his reflection in the grimy window and cuffing strands of sick from his bristling, black beard. “A tradition. Every time I set out on a new journey I spew my guts up against a wall.”

  He felt his stomach lurch again and, unseen by Astarra, screwed his eyes tight shut. He was willing away the churning of his insides, the cold, clammy sweat, the pounding in his skull. He was in no fit state to embark on a month-long trek, back to the city that had already taken so much from him. But damned if he would admit any of that to his new companions.

  “I’m fine,” he said, opening his eyes and forcing himself to take a deep, slow breath, followed by a swig of tepid water from the skin at his hip.

  “I didn’t ask,” Astarra said. Raythen turned to look at her, forcing himself to put on a smile.

  “Not a morning person, are you?” he said.

  “Apparently neither are you,” Astarra pointed out. She was shielded from the cold wind blowing along the dirt street by a heavy mantle of mottled leonx pelt, the white fur a contrast to the long, black braid of hair that hung over one shoulder. Her staff was strapped to her back, its blue tip shimmering slightly as it caught the dawn.

  “Where did you spend the night?” Raythen asked her as he hefted his rucksack and settled it onto his stout shoulders, tugging at his muddy green cloak to free it from the straps.

  “In one of the bedrooms upstairs,” Astarra said. “And you?”

  “Under one of the tables downstairs,” Raythen said. “I think…”

  He reached up and tentatively probed at the side of his head, hissing as he felt the lump that had formed there overnight. Everything after leaving Cayfern had been a blur. He remembered another bout of cards, though he had no idea if Slevchek had been involved or not. There were patchwork recollections of shattered glass, shouting, a stool hurtling through the air. He’d come to beneath a table in the corner of the wrecked taproom. The first thing he’d checked had been Cayfern’s silver and the coin he’d won – all intact. That was what mattered. He’d forced himself to leave a few pieces with a stony-faced barmaid attempting to clear up the damage, before stumbling out into the weak dawn light.

  “The question is, where is our third, gallant companion?” he wondered out loud, turning away from Astarra to survey the street.

  Frostgate lay before him, gray and bleak in the gathering light. Summer still ruled over this corner of Terrinoth, but it had long lost its luster. Raythen knew that soon the traders, merchants and mercenaries would be returning to the infamous Free City, seeking shelter and coin as the northern routes became impassable and the rivers iced over. The number of inhabitants would quadruple in the space of a few weeks, and a whole new settlement of yurts, tents and shelters would spring up beyond its walls. Raythen always made sure he was gone by the time the weather turned – he had too many enemies fond of Frostgate to risk being around at the height of the season.

  “The elf is already here,” Astarra said, causing him to look back and follow her ga
ze.

  Shiver was standing in the darkness of the alleyway that ran down the flank of Skellig’s, as still and silent as a revenant. Raythen almost jumped, unable to mask a scowl. He wasn’t used to being taken by surprise.

  “Where in Fortuna’s name did you come from?” he demanded. Shiver stepped forward into the muck of the streets, his tattered robes trailing in the frost-hardened dirt.

  “You have sick on your boots,” he said, without answering Raythen’s question. The dwarf looked down and realized he was right. Without bothering to wipe them clean, he smiled and reached up to clap his hand on the deathly figure’s shoulder.

  “We’re going to be friends, you and I,” he said. “I can tell.”

  Shiver showed no reaction, other than to slowly look down at Raythen’s hand until the dwarf removed it from his shoulder.

  Astarra strode past them both without a word, headed for the gate.

  “Looks like we’re getting underway then?” Raythen called after her, checking his pack one more time and taking another slow breath to calm his stomach. “Honestly, if I was in Thelgrim and I knew we were coming, I’d shut the gates too.”

  Shiver had set off as well, manacled hands in front of him, tucked into the long hems of his sleeves. Sighing, Raythen began to follow.

  •••

  The mountains surged on either side, climbing towards the heavens, their white peaks shining in the sun while all about their feet lay in shadow.

  They stood before him, a woman and her child, bowed with exhaustion. Their clothes were ragged and dirty, their hair tangled and greasy, their eyes hollow, their cheeks starved. They stared into his soul like shades damning their own fate, and the fate of those who had led them to this. They said nothing.

  Slowly, the child raised an arm and pointed, past him, up at the mountainside. He looked but saw nothing. When he turned back, the mother was pointing too, in the same direction. Neither had taken their eyes off him.

  He heard a sound, low and soft at first, but rising rapidly. It was water, he realized, the sound of water rushing and surging. It grew and grew, until it was a raging, roaring torrent. But he couldn’t see it. He looked all around, turning in a circle, searching frantically. It sounded as though a flood was sweeping down the valley, yet there was no sign of it, nothing beyond the thunder in his ears.

  He realized abruptly that both the woman and the child were gone. Then, the water hit him.

  Shiver surged to his feet with a gasp, his heart racing. Around him the forest lay quiet. Dawn was only just beginning to show itself between the branches, a soft, pallid light lending color back to the mossy boughs and thick, hanging ivy. The undergrowth rustled nearby and a flitwing took flight, chirruping as it darted back up into the canopy.

  He sighed softly. For a moment he had forgotten where he was. But, as the vision sloughed off and his heart eased its pounding, reality returned. He had spent the night on the southern edge of Blind Muir forest, beneath the boughs of a great silverbark tree. His back was still sore from where a knot of roots had dug into it. He stretched, feeling aching muscles ease and bones pop.

  He was soaked, he realized. His robes, his skin, all of it was drenched, as though he’d been caught out in a thunderstorm while he’d slept. He grimaced. Despite the wetness, he felt no chill.

  He’d been right to take on the task. That was what he’d been telling himself since they’d left Frostgate, the week before. Regardless of the company, the memories had been leading him here, along the path of the Aenlong, Empyrean magics that he had been cut off from for so long. And the memories didn’t lie.

  He knew a part of him had been afraid. That was why he hadn’t used the lock until last night. He was worried he’d made the wrong choice. Worried he had once again been misled by hope. The locks had all pointed towards answers, and it had been so long since he’d had any. So long since he’d known anything beyond his penance.

  He was on the right path though. It had been a vision, not a memory, that the key had unlocked. He had seen the Dunwarrs. The rest, he could not yet explain. The path would show him though, in time.

  He looked down at his feet and saw the lock the human had given him. The key was lodged in it, turned to the right. He hesitated, then reached down and grasped it. As he picked it up, the rust marring the lock began to spread. A thousand years passed in the blink of an eye, as it ate away at the metal, gnawing and crumbling it, until the last of the dust was carried away by a breeze that gently rattled the branches of the silverbark behind him. He was left holding only the key.

  He tied it around his waist once more. He was tired, but the time for rest had passed. The other two would be looking for him, likely hoping he wouldn’t return. That didn’t worry Shiver. In their place, he’d have felt the same way.

  •••

  “Just where do you go some nights?” Raythen asked as he sat by the fire. It had been over a week since departing Frostgate, and the trio had not long passed north of Highmont. The road was becoming decidedly narrower and more rutted, and patchy fields and wooded outcrops had started to give way to wild heathland and rugged hills as they traveled further north and east. Blind Muir still lay to the left of where they had pitched up for the night, a dark, brooding mass that seemed to watch them constantly.

  Shiver said nothing as he sat, cross-legged, picking at a bowl of porridge Astarra had cooked up.

  “He goes into the forest at night, like all evil things,” Astarra said, not deigning to look at the elf. “I have seen him. Blind Muir is cursed. All know that.”

  “He probably just doesn’t want to risk you murdering him in his sleep,” Raythen pointed out to the sorceress.

  “I rest better alone,” Shiver said, tersely.

  Raythen didn’t press the matter. Since leaving Frostgate, he’d learned a number of valuable things about his companions, not least of which included the fact that the gaunt, ragged elf was less of a sinister presence and more a miserable loner. An aura of fear was convenient when it came to shunning others, and Raythen had no doubt Shiver used it to good effect. It certainly had Astarra fooled – she was convinced he was just waiting for the opportunity to cut their throats, drain their blood and sacrifice their souls to some Ynfernael demon.

  For her own part, Raythen suspected the runewitch was even more powerful than she was letting on. He had seen her employ her magics for the first time when they’d come across a caravan paused where the road crossed over a stream. One of the carts had tipped in, wounding a mother and catching a child in the current. Astarra had summoned the energies of one of her stones, the Deeprune, and commanded the waters, shaping them as a potter might shape clay and forcing them to surrender the small girl back into the arms of her mother.

  Raythen would have been impressed, if he hadn’t been forced to stop Astarra attacking Shiver moments later. The elf had gone to assist the woman injured in the accident, turning his strange, chill elven magics to sealing up a gash on her arm. Astarra, it seemed, had thought he was draining the life from the poor individual.

  Once he’d managed to convince her to back down, the refugees had shown their gratitude with a gift of some bread and oats. It was the third such group they’d encountered in the past seven days, each one seemingly more miserable and bedraggled than the last. Toiling columns of wagons and carts clogged the road, creaking and laden down with all manner of possessions, not to mention people – the old, the young, the infirm. Those who still could, trudged alongside them, heads bowed with exhaustion.

  Raythen knew this road wasn’t the only one troubled by such processions. He had noted the rise in numbers of refugees, from the last job he’d done in Dawnsmoor all the way to Frostgate, where sorry clusters of homeless, destitute families huddled desperately around sputtering fires in the cold streets and alleyways. He’d seen displacement before, many times, from those fleeing Riverwatch after the great festerskin out
break, to the dispossessed abandoning the Borderlands during the raiding season. He’d never known these sorts of numbers though. It was as if all of Terrinoth had been forced to take to the road with only what they could carry on their backs or heap on a cart.

  From what Raythen had seen, there were no unifying demographics either. Many of the refugees were human, but he had spotted the features and heard the accents of every barony as far south as the great woodland of the Aymhelin. There were orcs and dwarfs among them too, a few Hyrrinx catfolk, even elves. All brought with them stories of unrest, of bandit attacks and Uthuk raids and, most persistently, rumors of a great battle that had been fought against the demon-worshipers in Kell or one of the other eastern baronies.

  Wordlessly, Shiver rose from beside the fire and stalked off. Raythen caught Astarra’s glare and couldn’t help but smirk.

  “Why do you hate him so?” he asked her. “Is there some past history between you two that I know nothing of?”

  She shook her head defensively. “I saw enough promising students at Greyhaven destroyed by the lure of the darker forms of magic. I told you, I know one when I see one.”

  Raythen grunted noncommittally. Secretly, he was glad Shiver had departed for the night. He’d been wanting to talk to Astarra for a few days, and had been trying to gauge when best to do so. He had questions about her involvement, and he wanted them answered before he started putting any more trust in her.

  “I’ve been troubled by something for a few days now,” he said, his tone casual as he glanced at the runewitch over the fire. “Since that night in Skellig’s, actually. It’s had me thinking, day and night, because I reckon it’s important, but I just can’t quite figure it out. Just what do you want in Thelgrim?”

  Astarra didn’t reply, gazing stoically down into her porridge.

  “You didn’t take the silver,” Raythen continued. “Didn’t show any interest in it. Neither you nor the elf have even asked about it since I took it all. He at least was offered something else, though I’ve no idea what he wants with a collection of old locks. Probably something terribly sinister and esoteric. You though, Cayfern offered you nothing else, yet you still took the job.”