by T G W Becker
“Sunny side up or over easy?” he asked, having seen her stir.
“I’m sorry?” she replied, slightly confused as to the change in morning routine.
“Your eggs. Do you prefer a runny yolk or a hard yolk?” Drake asked her in a patient and soft tone.
“Runny would be nice, thank you. Is Rossa still sleeping?”
“Your friend is more of a morning person than I am. She was rattling the pots before the sun was even half risen; went off a short time ago to find more eggs and who knows what else.” Drake gave the eggs in the pan a quick poke and then set them back over the fire.
The mouth watering smell of cooking was enticing mixed with the gentle aroma of morning dew.
“Smells good,” Nethalie said as she inhaled the pleasant smells.
“It won’t be too long until they’re done now,” Drake rummaged in his nearby pack and pulled out a small, roughly crafted spoon. She watched as he tipped the pan gently and began to spoon the fat back over the eggs.
“Where did you find cooking fat out here?”
Not breaking his attention from basting the eggs he replied, “I’m not completely uncivilised you know. I picked up a small bottle back in Isimir. You never know when it might come in handy,” he smiled as he watched her from the corner of his eye. Nethalie continued watching as Drake cooked, her stomach occasionally betraying her hunger with a quiet grumble.
A short while later, served up with a chunk of tough bread and a hot cup of slightly over brewed tea; Nethalie sat happily enjoying her food.
“One might think she had not been fed for days,” Zeek said as he and Drake spoke of last night’s events. The sight and smells of campfire food reminded Zeek of foods and hunts from many, many years ago, when he was whole.
“Definitely a city girl,” Drake replied, “not used to having to ration her food.” He watched the half-elf as she used the last piece of her bread to mop up the spilt yolk.
“I wonder where the Bluecap has gone though. It has been many an hour since first light when she left,” Zeek seemed to be concerned as to the length of the disappearance.
“I know, but we don’t know how far she had to go to find more eggs. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was being picky and has travelled in search of speckled duck eggs.”
The two of them chuckled at the thought of this, for speckled ducks, on a good day, were at least half the size of the Bluecap.
The morning rolled into almost midday, and there was still no sign of Rossa. Drake had to admit that, by this point, he was concerned. Nethalie on the other hand, was passed concern.
“She may have fallen into a trap, or been captured...or..,” she began, “we need to go and look for her. Just point me in the direction she left.”
“We haven’t seen any traps and I’m sure she can look after herself,” Drake tried to calm her. “Look, if you stay here with the ponies, I’ll go have a look and see if I can find her.”
Without waiting for her to answer, Drake got to his feet and grabbed his two blades from the pack, attaching them on his belt. “Don’t worry; I’m sure she’s fine.”
As he set out to the edge of the clearing, Rossa came bursting back into it. She was out of breath and branch beaten, but at least she still had all her limbs.
“I’ve found..,” she gasped, “holding...scrolls...abandoned.”
Nethalie brought her over a canteen of water. Rossa took it and gulped, just before Nethalie delivered a swift right swing to her arm.
“That’s for going off without me. Who knows what might have happened while you were gone,” Nethalie snapped, giving a suspicious look to Drake.
“So that’s the thanks I get for cooking you eggs in the morning,” Drake smiled, “and there I was hoping for something better.”
Rossa had now drained the canteen. “If you two have quite finished flirting over eggs! I found something this morning. I was looking for more eggs when I spotted this strange looking man in grey robes. He looked in a hurry, so I followed him. At first he didn’t seem to know where he was going, almost going in circles at one point. I was about to give up, when I realised; he was checking to make sure he wasn’t being followed.”
“You know that a grey robe means he was a shadow mage,” Drake interjected.
“I got that when he finally reached where he was going.”
“Which was...?” Nethalie asked.
“I was getting there! So, I followed him to this strange dome that was in the middle of nowhere, but it felt like somewhere..,” she drifted into thought at that point, before snapping back, “ anyway, he went into this place for almost an hour and then came out, clutching a huge tome under his arm. After I was sure he wasn’t coming back, I made my way into the dome. It was abandoned, no guards, nothing. Well...it turned out it was a holding!” she exclaimed.
“That is indeed a most lucky find,” Zeek spoke, allowing all of them to hear him. As he did, Rossa smiled. “A holding, from what I can recall, is a store of various scrolls, spells, artefacts, tomes and on occasion...prisoners. I am surprised it was not guarded, but we do not know what numbers the shadow mages have within their ranks.”
“After what I saw, I’d have to say not many,” Rossa continued, “but all the contents of the holding still seem to be there. I think it’s well worth a look in, there must be some kind of clue there as to where we head next.”
“Zeek, what do you think? You know more about the holdings than we do,” Drake asked his friend.
“I must agree. Since we know very little about what happenings have come and gone in the last thousand years in this realm, we may find some helpful clues among the scrolls.”
“Thank you Zeek,” Rossa smiled, “I’m sure we can find some hint of where we should start looking. If not...well there must be something of use.”
“Sounds like off to the holding we go then,” Nethalie added.
So they set about packing up from the previous night. Blankets were rolled, the fire dismantled and all evidence they had been there was removed as best they could. The packs were all secured onto the ponies. Arthure seemed a little uneasy as Drake saddled him.
“Easy boy. These are Marik’s ponies. You must know them,” he patted his flank to calm him. Having two new ponies, along with two new companions, made even Drake feel a little off balance.
Once they were all mounted, they set off, with Rossa leading the way.
. . .
It was a surprise as to just how close the holding was. By pony, they reached the dome within an hour.
“She made good time on foot, considering how small she is,” Zeek mused as they drew up a safe distance away.
The dome was an interesting structure to behold. It sat low and squat to the ground. The entrance was a staircase, descending quickly into the depths of the earth below. Its height and shape made it difficult to spot even at a short distance. The dirty grey stonework from which it was made, hid a great deal from view. Moss, lichen and grass were growing all over it. Combined with the deep brown of the surrounding trees, it was almost completely camouflaged.
“It must be abandoned, judging by it’s condition,” Zeek told the group, “still, I would advise caution. The last holding I saw had several mages present.”
“Like I said, no one here,” Rossa looked at Nethalie and Drake. “Shall we?”
The three ponies were roped to a tree, hopefully out of sight of anyone wishing to ‘acquire’ them. Just to be sure, Drake cast a protective barrier around them.
“That should keep any usual travellers away from our packs and mounts.”
With weapons firmly in hand and a quick spell at the ready, they made their way towards the entrance, darting from tree to tree and always taking a good look around before moving on.
“It really does look abandoned,” Drake spoke with Zeek, “or at least something is very wrong here.”
“From the lack of mages we have encountered, the numbers must be truly low,” Zeek seemed confident in his assess
ment of their situation.
As they reached the staircase that descended into the holding, the detail of the stonework was revealed. Intricate carvings had been made into the stone, showing runes and images of gods, battles and sacrifices. These all flowed leading the viewer towards the entrance of the holding.
“Down we go then,” Nethalie said, glancing at Drake.
“Down we go,” he agreed.
The stairs led down into complete darkness. Not a single drop of light got further than the first few steps.
“E’lit,” Drake cast as he peered into the darkness.
“Impressive,” Rossa said, “but two can play ‘cast the magical sphere’...E’lit,” a globe appeared above Rossa.
“If you have quite finished. Shall we get a move on?” Nethalie coughed.
“Indeed.”
Rossa led the way down the steep narrow staircase. The cold of the earth crept out of the stone, chilling their teeth as they descended. There must be at least a hundred steps here, Drake thought as they finally reached level ground again. Rossa sent her globe whizzing off in front of them to see what lay ahead.
“Show off,” Drake muttered under his breath as the globe spun and danced.
Rossa’s globe illuminated the chambered area that lay at the end of a short corridor.
The chamber was circular, with two corridors branching off towards the far end from where they stood. The walls were covered in vast amounts of shelving, from floor to ceiling. No parcel of space had been left untouched. Scrolls, artefacts and tomes littered the dusty wooden shelves. Occasionally, there was an odd gap where an object or tome had once sat, now replaced by a dusty grey shadow.
Must be one of the more obscure holdings, Drake thought to himself whilst picking up a deep orange gemstone from nearby.
“Those doors lead to a few further rooms. One looks like it was once bolted and locked from the outside, so it must have been a cell of some kind. The other door leads to several small rooms that look like they used to be private chambers. The only things back there now are mouldy mattresses and rotting furniture,” Rossa reported. Neither Drake nor Nethalie had realised she had wandered off ahead.
“Let’s at least take a look through the scrolls and tomes. There must be something here giving some details as to the movements of the mages over the last thousand years,” Nethalie spoke as she reached for the nearest handful of scrolls and then headed to the one good table left in the chamber. Spreading the pile out across the table, she began to look through them.
Drake looked at Rossa, who shrugged her shoulders then collected her own armful of scrolls.
“Looks like it’s going to be a long night Zeek. I’m not a huge fan of reading, particularly after what happened the first time I went rummaging in a chamber full of scrolls.”
“Let us hope then that we come across something of use quickly, including perhaps a map for Lou. As for our meeting, that dear Drake, was prophecy, not a random event.” Zeek sounded amused by Drake’s comment.
Sighing, Drake picked up a hefty looking tome and made his way to the table to join the others.
. . .
“More rubbish,” Nethalie complained. The scroll she had in hand found its way onto the ever increasing pile on the floor next to her.
“Patience Nethalie. A clue will present itself when it has been coaxed forth,” Zeek offered the best advice he could. His frustration at not being of much use kept nudging at Drake’s own frustrations at the amount of time they had been sifting through the endless number of scrolls and tomes.
“Why don’t you go and get some air and check on the ponies? I’m sure they are wondering where we have got to by this point. We don’t want them chewing through their ropes and wandering off back to Marik. He might get the wrong impression as to our state of health,” Drake smiled at the half-elf. “If we find anything we’ll come find you.”
Nethalie stood, picked up her bow and cocked an arrow into the notch. “I won’t be long. Don’t have too much fun while I’m gone.”
The sarcasm grated a little, but they were all getting tired and wondering whether this was a foolish folly spending so much time in a mage’s holding.
~ 24 ~
In the end they ransacked the hold for information for two days; working as quickly as they could to sift through the stacks and stacks of texts. As darkness began to descend on the first day, they had quickly made their exit and travelled a safe distance away from the hold, but close enough to ensure that any activity from passing mages would not go unnoticed. The chilling winds of night swept upon them so swiftly, that they simply abandoned the piles of scrolls where they were. The hope was that, should a mage come across the sight, they would assume the ransacking had been for gold and artefacts, rather than written treasures. It would also make the continuing of efforts of the next day much easier knowing what had already been read.
The three took shifts in the night to keep watch for any sign of mages; the silence of the night was an uneasy presence however. In Kelsach, the night air was filled with the noises of hunter and prey as they went about their deadly games. In this realm however, it seemed as though the blackness of the night had banished all and not even the insects dared to defy its will.
The second day they had struck upon something useful. Drake was sifting through the contents of yet another brown, leather-bound tome, when he came across a collection of maps. This had been a useful find as some of the maps looked suitable for taking back to Lou, Drake hoped she might find them interesting. After sifting through the pile and removing a few he almost disregarded the rest of them; after all, these were not the first maps he had come across in the holding.
“Anything look important on these Zeek?”
“No thing that seems more important than the last sets of maps we looked at,” Zeek sighed as Drake began to move the map to the ever-growing pile. “Wait. There, in the top corner. That looks like a seal I saw during my imprisonment.”
Drake brought the map closer and inspected the seal. There was writing underneath the seal, but he could not make it out.
“The writing is an ancient dialect. One which I can translate, given some time.”
“We’ve got our first hit over here,” Drake called out across the room to the others, “Zeek recognises a seal on this map.”
“Indeed, but I need time to translate the text. Nethalie, would you be so kind as to store this map in your saddle bag for the moment? I believe that whatever we find of use, we should ‘borrow’ for the time being, so as to not prolong our time here more than necessary.”
Nethalie slipped the now neatly rolled map into her bag. She smiled as she flipped the flap closed.
“That’s one step closer to finding out where to head next. Let’s hope for a solid lead, rather than a riddle or some ridiculously convoluted double meaning. It’s starting to feel as though someone didn’t want the Ecliptica pieces known about, let alone found.”
The next good find was a text that Rossa discovered. It held details on a group of elite mages; possibly directly bound to the orders and will of Oriomus, Zeek speculated. The text detailed several journeys that the mages had undertaken in search of an ‘item of great magical potential’. The dates on the records indicated that these mages may very well have been searching for Ecliptica pieces or, indeed, Zeek’s core piece. Either way, Rossa made the point that something requiring a band of elite mages must be worth a look.
“It may even be that whatever it is they may have found was stored in the same place that the Ecliptica piece ended up. I’m not sure we should toss this away; it may turn out to be a good lead.”
The others agreed that she made a good point, so into the saddle bag it went.
After another few hours, and a few more good finds, they felt they had more than enough references and maps to set them on the right path. Besides, the holding was starting to feel a little too cold and menacing to stay much longer.
. . .
The scrolls from
the holding they had rummaged through yesterday gave them some clues as to where to head next. The pack on the side of Arthure held a handful that had been the most promising, along with three old maps that had shown areas of the realm that even Zeek could not identify. The plan now, was to get a safe distance away from the holding so that when the inevitable return of a mage did occur, they were nowhere in sight. Once they had decided that enough distance had been covered, and only then, they would they stop and give the scrolls and maps their full attention.
“We can’t really need to go much further? My sores have sores and my behind feels like it’s taken on a whole new shape,” Rossa complained.
“Just a little further,” Drake said, a hint of irritation in his voice. This had not been the first time Rossa had complained.
Rossa gave a heavy sigh, “fine, but the next place we come to had better be soon.”
“We just need to be sure we aren’t close enough for any unwanted people to join our little party,” Nethalie interjected.
Luckily, it was not too much longer when a clearing presented itself and the troupe could stop, much to the relief of Rossa.
The next morning Drake awoke to find that the Bluecap had already left, he assumed to go scavenging for eggs again. How someone could get up that early and still be coherent by the end of the day was anybody’s guess. He stretched and made his usual check to be sure that Zeek’s core was still safe within his robes.
“Have no fear youngling, I am still with you,” Zeek gave his mind a gentle nudge as Drake’s came back from the depths of sleep.