They had been caught. Somehow, and they didn’t know how, the Zweigelan had snuck back into its nest and ambushed them from behind. How was it possible that no one had seen it arrive? Why hadn’t Rhamalli warned them?
Both brothers slowly turned to face the nest’s owner. Not only had the Zweigelan managed to get the drop on them, but it had also found a way to slip by them and flank them from the rear of the cave. If the dragon continued its approach, and it gave every indication it was going to do just that, then the dwarves would be forced off the ledge and end up plummeting to their deaths.
Venk dropped the jewel into his pocket and pulled out his crossbow. He quickly cocked his weapon and loaded a bolt, clenching several more of the mini arrows in his left hand. Just in case. Athos had not only pulled his own axe out but had also grabbed a second axe from a nearby stash of weapons. The Zweigelan sneered at them.
“What have we here?” Left Head ran a forked tongue over its many teeth. “I do believe lunch has arrived!”
“We’ve never had a meal delivered to us before,” Right Head observed. A glob of drool spilled out its gaping jaws and trickled to the ground. “We are grateful.”
“We are not lunch,” Athos said through gritted teeth.
“How did you slip by us?” Venk asked, hoping to stall the dragon. For what, he didn’t know, only he had to try. If he and Athos could keep the dragon distracted long enough then perhaps Lukas would be able to slip away. Somehow.
“Never left, did we?” Left Head grinned. It clacked its teeth a few times, as if in anticipation of its upcoming meal.
“You were here the whole time?” Venk asked, not bothering to hide the exasperation in his voice. “Where? We didn’t see you.”
“We were disguised,” Left Head gloated. “No one could see us.”
“On the ceiling, we were,” Right Head added.
“Be silent,” Left Head snapped. “Our lunch does not need to know how we are able to camouflage ourselves.”
Irritated, Right Head took a deep breath and prepared to let loose an enormous jet of flames. Left Head instantly ducked down low and came up rather abruptly under Right Head’s open jaws, snapping its mouth closed in the process.
“Still your flames! You’ll damage the nest, just like last time.”
Disgruntled, Right Head looked down at the two dwarves and licked its chops. If it couldn’t enjoy its lunch cooked then at least it could enjoy it raw. Right Head’s jaws opened and it readied itself to lunge forward.
A spinning red axe suddenly swooshed by the two brothers and collided with a row of shields resting on the ground. Mythryd cut through two of the shields as though they were made of paper; the rest of the shields skidded across the floor and crashed noisily into a pile of plumed helmets, which tipped over several in the process. The Zweigelan screeched with rage.
Venk looked down at a helmet that had come to rest against his foot. Inspiration struck. He gave the helmet a swift kick and watched it fly out over the edge of the cave and drop out of sight.
“What are you doing?” Left Head cried out, as if enmeshed in the throes of sheerest agony. “You mustn’t disrupt the nest! It took us years to organize our collection!”
“Years!” Right Head echoed.
Venk smiled maliciously. “Indeed? So you probably would prefer if I didn’t do this?”
He gave the signal to Athos, who turned to the nearest pile and gave it a swift kick. A stack of gauntlets were sent tumbling across the cavern floor. Several fell off the edge.
The Zweigelan roared in anger. It rushed towards the closest intruder, which happened to be Breslin. Intent on ripping him to shreds, it reared both heads and prepared to strike. Breslin ducked behind one of the many piles of debris in the cave and vanished. Left Head stretched its neck up and over the pile Breslin had disappeared behind, expecting to find the dwarf crouching on the other side. It ground its teeth in frustration. No dwarves were hiding there. Both heads quickly scanned the nest as it searched for other potential targets. Left Head spotted Venk at about the same time Right Head located Athos. Athos was brandishing an axe in each hand while Venk took aim at Left Head. Much to the dragon’s chagrin, both dwarves were standing next to several piles at the edge of its nest, closest to the drop off. Athos swung his axe like a club, using the flat of his axe head to smash through a huge stack of books, quills, and parchment.
The stack virtually exploded. Sheets of paper and books went flying everywhere. Since Athos had deliberately aimed for the nest’s entrance, most of the contents of the pile went sailing over the edge of the nest.
The Zweigelan roared in agony. Defilers had entered the nest and were destroying years upon years of hard work. The dragon singled out one of the invaders, the smallest which was hiding near the entrance, and advanced. Deftly maneuvering its sinewy body amongst its collection, the Zweigelan approached the tiny biped.
Detecting movement in its peripheral vision, Left Head swung to its right and stared at the rapidly moving object. Confused, Left Head tracked the yellow object as it flew around the perimeter of its cave before it curved inward and glanced off its nose, leaving a stinging welt in the process. Left Head roared with frustration and watched the spinning object disappear behind a pile of armor. It didn’t reappear.
The Zweigelan took several threatening steps towards its collection of armor when two more tiny flying creatures appeared, taking off in opposite directions. The yellow creature spun as it flew, circling around from the left while its green counterpart spun through the air as it approached from the right. Too surprised to move, Left Head watched as both creatures curved again and once more leapt in to attack. The Zweigelan finally regained its senses and ducked low. It watched with a satisfied smirk as the yellow object passed harmlessly over its head. Its green twin, however, flew directly into Right Head’s left eye.
Right Head roared in pain. It glanced down to see that the green creature had dropped to the ground, apparently lifeless. The Zweigelan retrieved the object from the ground. It was a piece of metal! One of the nest’s desecrators must have thrown it. It must be a weapon!
Too angry to realize it didn’t have a weapon as unique as the one it as holding in its collection, the Zweigelan flung the curved green piece of metal out of its nest.
Watching from his hiding place, Athos scowled. “Blast it, Two Heads just tossed my green orix over the edge!”
“I’m sure we can get it back,” Venk whispered back to him.
The Zweigelan located the tiniest biped once more and lunged forward.
Venk saw what was happening and dove over the large stack separating him from his son. Pushing Lukas back towards his brother he turned to face the dragon. That was the final straw. Venk was tired of all this junk. He was tired of this smelly cave. And more importantly, he was tired of the Zweigelan threatening his son’s life.
“One more step, dragon,” Venk warned, “and so help me I’ll smash through every pile there is in here and send everything over the edge. Do you hear me?”
The two headed dragon paused as it stared at the larger intruder.
“Back away from my son. Right now.”
To make certain the dragon understood he was serious, Venk smashed his crossbow through a pile of leather armor. Gauntlets, greaves, and cuirasses tumbled out into the nothingness beyond the nest’s border.
“I have three other piles within range,” Venk calmly told the dragon, shifting his body slightly to his left so that he could easily reach a nearby pile of shields. “Look over there. Athos is ready to send your collection of swords over. See Breslin there? He has your chest of jewels. He’s ready to throw the whole thing over the edge. You have five seconds to move to the back of the cave. Now.”
The Zweigelan’s twin necks began swaying back and forth. Was it ready to strike or was it contemplating whether or not it should comply with Venk’s order? The dragon shifted its weight forward,
as if ready to take another step.
“Last chance. Take a another step. I dare you.”
The seriousness of Venk’s voice, along with his rigid body language, finally brought the dragon to a halt. With extreme reluctance, the Zweigelan took a step backwards.
“That’s right. Keep moving.”
The twin-headed dragon took another step back.
“Better move faster than that,” Breslin snarled. He had dragged the chest of jewels out from under the piles of fabric and was now resting a foot on it as the chest teetered over the edge. “If you ever want to see these gems again you’ll do as we say.”
Both heads growled angrily at Breslin as it continued to retreat further into its cave.
“We are leaving,” Venk informed the dragon, still using an eerily calm tone. “And we are taking our things with us.”
“Your days are numbered,” Left Head hissed angrily at them. “We’ll find you, that we promise you. You failed to solve the riddle. Your things belong to us.”
“Thieves!” Right head screeched at them. “Insolent thieves deserve to die!”
Nodding, Venk pulled the spiral gem out of his pocket.
“I am sorry, but we need this more than you do. This will be coming with us, too.”
“If it makes you feel any better,” Breslin added, “we really didn’t lose the bet. We know the answer to your riddle.”
“We do?” Venk asked, turning to Breslin.
“I highly doubt that,” Tristofer scoffed, appearing next to Lukas. “I didn’t know the answer and I’m the scholar.”
“Liar!” Left Head exclaimed, jerking upwards.
Right Head was twisting and turning as it tried to locate all five of the intruders. At that present moment, it was directly over its twin. Left Head collided with Right Head resulting in a rather hollow popping noise.
“No one has ever correctly answered the riddle!”
Breslin looked at the two headed dragon in pity. “Then find some smarter victims. The answer is ‘sunshine’. My father taught that to me when I was a boy. He told me that my grandfather told it to him many years ago.”
The Zweigelan was speechless as it stared at the dwarves.
“I had a feeling you wouldn’t hold up your end of the bargain,” Breslin casually explained, “so we came up with a backup plan. Just in case.”
Pleased, Venk turned back to the dragon and started ticking off points on his fingers.
“Alright, let’s see. Riddle answered. Possessions reclaimed. Jewel found. I do believe it’s time to depart.”
“NEVER!” both heads screeched in unison. The Zweigelan lunged forward, covering a frighteningly large distance in a short amount of time.
With their weapons at the ready, both Breslin and Athos plowed through several stacks of shields and swords. The dragon was horrified that even more of its collection had been lost. Spying a golden shield that was just starting to tip over the edge, Right Head darted out to snatch it in its jaws before it was lost.
Not one to waste an opportunity to create a distraction, Breslin rotated Mythryd so that the dual cutting blades were facing away from him. He scrambled up several stacks of books and leapt towards Right Head, swinging his axe like a war club.
Mythryd connected with the gold shield held tightly in Right Head’s fangs and generated an impressive clang which caused the entire dragon to vibrate uncontrollably for several seconds.
“Now’s our chance!” Breslin told his companions. “Venk, you’d better be ready. Jump!”
“Excuse me?” Tristofer sputtered in shock.
The scholar began backing away from the cave’s edge, but before he could take more than a few steps Athos and Breslin each hooked an arm and pulled him over the edge. At the same time, Venk looped his arm through his son’s and leapt out of the nest, following the others.
Venk didn’t know which noise was louder: the howling wind or Tristofer’s screams. Retrieving Shardwyn’s spell from his pocket, he invoked the levitation spell and fervently hoped it was strong enough to protect all five of them.
Venk squeezed the sphere as hard as he could as they fell. How was the blasted thing supposed to work?
“What are you waiting for? Slow us down!” Breslin hollered.
“You tell me how to get us to stop falling and I will!”
Everyone slammed to a stop, causing Venk and Lukas to crash into Athos and Tristofer. Venk covered Lukas’ ears as numerous curses were thrown about.
“It worked!” Tristofer exclaimed, his aches and pains forgotten. “I didn’t think that... you do realize we’re still hundreds of feet from the ground, right?”
Everyone turned to look down. Sure enough, the distant treetops were visible at least five hundred feet away. They were floating, motionless, in mid air. Breslin suddenly cursed again.
“Venk, get us on the ground. Hurry!!”
Alarmed, Venk looked up. The Zweigelan’s twin heads had appeared over the rim of the cave and was staring down at them. A split second later it had launched itself out of its cave and was plummeting straight towards them. Wings partially extended, it rapidly closed the distance separating them. It would be over in just a few seconds.
“Nothing is happening!” Venk angrily told Breslin. “Damn all the wizards and their blasted spells! Why won’t it take us down?”
The white sphere grew warm in his hand. Whatever force that was holding them suspended in the air disappeared, dropping the dwarves like stones from the sky.
“Don’t drop us!” Breslin bellowed. “Just take us down gently!”
“There are no blasted instructions for this thing or I’d be more than happy to stop us!”
Once more the falling dwarves slammed to a halt. Everyone braced for the inevitable, as the dragon had been so close that they could smell its rancid breath. Incredulously, the Zweigelan veered to the left and sped by them a split second later. It crashed through the green canopy far below and disappeared. However, sounds of thrashing began as the dragon had either injured itself after crashing through the trees or else something had foolishly decided to engage it on the forest floor.
“What is it?” Lukas asked as he peered around his father’s body and watched many of the tree tops shake and sway uncontrollably.
“Sounds like the dragon is fighting something,” Venk answered. “What it is, I don’t know.”
“Will you please take us down?” Breslin asked. “Slowly this time? I don’t think I can take any more sudden falls.”
Venk glared at the spell in his hand. What was the trick to making it work? Didn’t Shardwyn say it could be used to raise or lower something should the need arise? Why would he make it difficult to use?
“We want to go down. Slowly.”
They all dropped another hundred feet before Venk managed to stop their progress.
“The next time I see that wizard I’m personally going to break his kneecaps,” Breslin grumbled.
“It’s a good thing we don’t need to go the other direction,” Tristofer said, glancing nervously at the sky.
“Which direction?” Venk asked, turning to face the scholar. “Up?”
The band of dwarves rocketed skyward as though they had been shot out of a trebuchet.
Athos hauled off and smacked his brother on the arm. Hard.
“Tell it to stop, you fool!”
“Stop!” Venk yelled.
Their brief ascent was abruptly cut off. Once more they hung motionless in the air.
“Do you not see what’s going on?” Athos angrily asked his brother. “Every time you say up, or down, or stop, it responds to you. Be careful what you say!”
“Why wouldn’t Shardwyn have told us that? I think the old fool needs to retire.”
“You think?” Athos tugged his beard, hoping the pain would help clear his head. “Now tell it to lower us to the ground. Slowly.”
Venk eyed h
is brother and then glared at his closed fist. “How am I supposed to do that? It’s clearly worked so well before. Now, take us gently down, you lousy excuse of a spell.”
A few seconds passed while the dwarves anxiously looked at each other.
“What’s happening?” Breslin asked, twisting in midair to study their location. “Are we going down?”
Venk looked closely at the wall of stone next to them. “I don’t think we... wait! Aye, we are. Look down there. Two Head’s cave is getting closer.”
“This is ridiculous,” Athos spat in disgust. “The sun will set before we reach the ground. Can we not move things along?”
“Er, Venk, can I ask how much longer this spell will hold out?” Tristofer warily asked.
“Not much longer by my reckoning,” Venk told him. He addressed his left hand again. “We need to get down faster than this.”
The rate they were descending doubled, which wasn’t saying much.
“Faster than that.”
Their velocity doubled again.
“Getting closer. Keep going.”
Their speed increased until they were being lowered to the ground at a much more comfortable rate. They had already passed the dragon’s cave and were nearing the treetops when bad luck graced them with its presence once more. Shardwyn’s spell gave out.
One moment Venk was clutching the small warm sphere and the next his hand was empty. As soon as the spell vanished Venk knew with absolute certainty that they were in serious trouble.
“I’m really starting to dislike that wizard.”
Venk and his companions screamed as they plummeted towards the trees. Gaining in speed, they punched through the forest canopy, snapping off twigs and getting mouthfuls of leaves and pine needles for their troubles. They dropped another fifty feet when they landed on something that was soft and springy. The surface stretched as it absorbed the energy from their fall and recoiled back into place, causing them to bounce back into the air. The next thing they hit was much harder. The surface resembled a pile of shields all overlapping one another. The ground shifted, tilting steeply down, sending the five of them tumbling and sliding down the lumpy slide. They rolled several times along the ground until they came to a stop in a tangled heap of arms and legs.
Breslin was the first to crack an eye open. He was flat on his back, looking up, way way up, at their savior: a dragon. Or more specifically, the owner of the dragon wing they had landed on. The wing must have bounced them over to its leg and then they had slid down the dragon’s heavily scaled foreleg to the ground. Confused, the dragon stared at the distant treetops, wondering what else was planning on falling from the sky.
“What do we do now?” Athos whispered to Breslin.
“Start smiling,” Breslin whispered back. He cautiously regained his feet and cleared his throat as he did so. “Good day to you, my fine scaly friend. You have our thanks for breaking our fall.”
The black dragon jerked its head down. Its eyes narrowed as it located those responsible for its sore wing.
“You landed on her wing,” a familiar voice told them. “She’s not exactly happy to see you.”
Rhamalli had appeared. The dark red dragon with the purple edged wings angled its head and indicated the dwarves should back away from the unknown dragon.
“They soiled my scales, Rhamalli!”
Rhamalli turned to look back at the black dragon that was now holding up her left foreleg.
“Kem, don’t be melodramatic.”
“Is there or is there not something dripping off my scales?”
Sure enough, some type of liquid could be seen trickling off the glossy black scales, coalescing onto the ground. Rhamalli turned back to stare at the dwarves with a shocked expression on his face.
“You urinated on her??”
Breslin’s mouth dropped open, aghast. His expression quickly turned to anger as he looked at Athos, who angrily looked at his brother. Horrified, Venk looked down at his son.
“Boy, you’d better tell me you didn’t do that.”
Lukas shook his head. “I didn’t.”
Everyone slowly turned to Tristofer.
“Don’t look at me. I didn’t pee on the dragon.”
Breslin gave Tristofer’s clothes a quick once over.
“Why are your clothes wet?”
“My clothes aren’t wet! What in the world gave you... wait. What’s this? They are wet. Was it really me?”
Breslin sighed and closed his eyes. Shaking his head, he turned to face the black dragon.
“Please accept my humblest of apologies. I didn’t know my companion would do that.”
“It’s water! I didn’t pee on the dragon. Look, see? It’s just water!” Tristofer held up his punctured water bag. “It must have ripped during the slide down. That’s all, it’s only water. Er, please don’t eat us, Mister Kem.”
“Kemxandra is a female,” Rhamalli informed the scholar, albeit a little coldly. “I wouldn’t think you’d want to insult the same dragon twice on the same day.”
“Stop talking,” Breslin told Tristofer. “Close your mouth. All the way. There you go. Keep it that way until we’re safely away from here.”
Tristofer nodded glumly and jammed his hands into his pockets. Meanwhile, Kemxandra had bent her long black neck down so that she could take a few cautious sniffs of her leg. Satisfied that it was only water, the female dragon resumed ignoring the dwarves.
Breslin shook his head as he scowled at Tristofer. He turned to look up at Rhamalli. “So what are you doing here? What happened to Two Heads?”
Rhamalli moved his vast bulk to the side so that the dwarves could see what was happening behind him. The Zweigelan was struggling to escape, but it was a lost battle. A full size green dragon was holding each of the two necks tightly against the ground while another green dragon had pinned its wings back behind it. A third dragon, this one as white as snow, was leaning its enormous body against the Zweigelan’s, preventing any chance of an escape.
“You captured it?” Breslin asked. “Whatever for?”
“The rebel must be taken to Rinbok Intherer. There will be no renegades in his domain. This Zweigelan has been a thorn in his side long enough.”
“That’s why it dove past us and disappeared into the trees,” Tristofer mused. “It sensed the presence of the others and it was trying to escape.”
Rhamalli nodded. “Aye. We knew it would flee once we had been detected. That’s why more of us were hiding on the ground.”
“Well played,” Venk nodded, impressed.
“Rinbok Intherer is indebted to you for discovering the renegade’s lair,” Rhamalli told them. “He has authorized the five of you to be carried back to your valley if you so choose.”
All five dwarves vehemently shook their heads no.
“Thanks, but I think we’ll walk,” Breslin told the dragon. “I think I can speak for all of us here when I say that we’re done with flying. Besides, we have to figure out what the next move is.”
“Did you find what you were searching for?”
Venk held up the spiraled ruby.
“What’s that?” Rhamalli wanted to know.
“It’s a gem,” Venk answered, using a tone typically reserved for Lukas whenever he asked a silly question.
“Your powers of observation do you credit, master dwarf. I have not seen a jeweled whorl before. Have you fathomed its part in your quest?”
Venk shook his head. “Not yet.”
Athos located his fallen orix in a clump of prickly bushes. Cursing loudly, he retrieved his weapon and inspected it closely for damage. Not a scratch could be found. Smiling, he snapped it closed and returned it to its holder on his chest plate.
Several hours later the dwarves were all sitting around the hearth at their hastily constructed camp. Packs were stowed, hammocks were strung, and once everyone had finished their evening meal, o
nly then did Breslin ask Venk to produce the unique jewel. Tristofer leaned forward and plucked the jewel out of Venk’s hands just as soon as he laid eyes on it.
“It’s almost cold to the touch. Anyone else notice that?”
Venk nodded. “Aye. Just as soon as I touched it. It made the hairs on my arm stand up.”
“Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”
With his water bag raised high in the air, Venk briefly glanced over at the scholar before taking several large swallows of the cool mountain water they had found earlier.
“I highly doubt it.”
“It’s synthetic. It has to be. Look how perfect the spiral is. Look how each cut is precisely aligned with the next. These gems don’t occur naturally. The Narians engineered them.”
Breslin grunted. “Balderdash. You have no proof.”
“The dragons said they’ve never seen a jewel like this,” Tristofer continued, anxious to prove his point. “We certainly haven’t. What does that tell you?”
“It tells me that you still haven’t cleaned the grime out of my pack like you promised you would.”
Chagrined, Tristofer glanced at the grubby mess Venk’s pack had become after he had stuffed it full of books and scrolls back at the Zweigelan’s lair.
“That’s right, I did say that.”
“I know you did,” Venk agreed. “Get that moldy mess out of my pack and start cleaning.”
“What about the gem? When are we going to see what happens to Lukas’ back when we touch the gem to the map?”
“Soon. As for you, get busy. I’d like to be able to pick my pack up again without thinking about tossing it into the fire.”
Resigned, Tristofer turned to the task at hand. The sooner he had Venk’s pack clean, the sooner he could study whatever changes the jewel brought to the map. Regardless of what Venk had said, he was going to keep a close eye on the proceedings from his vantage point. However, the scholar in him had other ideas in mind. Noticing that he had acquired quite a few new books and pieces of literature from the Zweigelan’s cave, he decided to catalog the newest additions to his traveling collection of books and scrolls. The items that were originally his went into one pile while those that were new went into another. Not until they had been closely examined, of course.
Lukas and the gem were quickly forgotten.
As he dropped a moldy book about trade routes down onto the new pile, a piece of paper partially slipped out from within its pages. Curiosity piqued, Tristofer pulled the yellowing parchment out and carefully unfolded it. It was a request from the human king to add an additional shipment of par bark to his order. Apparently the king enjoyed the earthy taste of the spice and wanted to increase his supply. Tristofer tossed the paper onto the discard pile and returned his attention to the next book.
“What was that?” Breslin asked as he walked by with an armful of firewood.
“It’s just a request from the human king to bring back more spice that he had originally ordered. Mundane stuff.”
Breslin glanced back at the sheet of paper and noticed its condition.
“Which king? Kri’Entu?”
Tristofer leaned over to pick up the discarded paper. He shook his head.
“No. This king’s name is Kre’Jurin.”
“Kre’Jurin?” Breslin deposited his load of wood next to the hearth. “Kre’Jurin was king of the humans when my father was my age, and I won’t even begin to tell you how many hundreds of years ago that was.”
Tristofer shrugged. Whether it was two hundred years ago or two thousand, he didn’t care.
“It goes to show you how long Two Heads had been terrorizing the area,” Breslin explained.
“You’d think the Dragon Lord would have dealt with it long before we came along,” Venk idly mused.
“Maybe he couldn’t find him?” Breslin guessed. “Or else maybe he had, and Two Heads had been given warnings, but elected not to pay heed? We may never know. What else do you have in there?”
Tristofer picked a few of the discarded books up and showed them to his companions.
“Nothing of interest, I’m afraid. We have titles on trade routes, horticulture, and even a book on bow making. Over there are a few children’s books that I haven’t checked yet.”
Breslin looked down at the half dozen badly damaged books and shook his head. He looked at Lukas and motioned him over.
“See anything down there that you’d like?”
“No. They’re all dirty.”
“They may be able to be cleaned.”
About to shake his head no, Lukas hesitated. A thin book barely thicker than a leaflet caught his eye. The cover, torn in several areas and missing the lower left portion, looked familiar. He stooped to pick the thin book up. Giving it a shake to dislodge years of dust, Lukas peered at the cover. It was a picture of a city. A golden city.
Lukas wiped the cover on the grass next to him and looked again. A badly tattered copy of the Legend of Nar looked back at him, only this copy had been illustrated by a different artist.
“Father, come see! It’s a copy of the Legend of Nar, like that which Master Maelnar showed us, only this one looks older.”
Venk abandoned watching Tristofer’s attempt at cleaning his pack and joined his son. He frowned as Lukas handed him the dilapidated book.
“It’s a copy of the Legend of Nar. You have that book. You’ve read that book. I’ve read you that book. Besides, yours is in much better condition.”
Lukas nodded. “Aye! But see here? The pictures are different!”
Venk brought the book up closer to his eyes. He squinted. The cover was a picture of an aerial view of a city. The golden buildings sparkled radiantly while the tiny specs that were supposed to be Nar’s inhabitants went about their business. Opening the first page, Venk began to read aloud:
In the annals of history,
Long has it been told:
Lying deep beneath the mountains,
Was a fabled city of old.
“I may not be a scholar, son, but I can tell you that this is the same book.”
“It is not! The pictures are different!”
Lukas looked wildly around until he spotted Tristofer on his hands and knees scrubbing his father’s pack. He ran over to him and dropped down on his knees as well.
“Tristofer, look! It’s a copy of the Legend of Nar, but the pictures are different.”
Tristofer, who had his head jammed up inside the freshly scrubbed pack to make certain he had extricated all traces of grime, pulled his head out and focused on the underling.
“What was that?”
Lukas held out the frayed book. About to ask the boy what he was supposed to do with that, Tristofer noticed the different illustrations, too.
“Where did you get this?”
“From you. It was one of the books you brought back from the Zweigelan’s cave.”
Tristofer sank back on his knees and slowly, reverently, read the book while he simultaneously inspected the illustrations. Right away Tristofer knew that the drawings were different from the one belonging to Maelnar’s granddaughter. The style was different. These pictures were dark; foreboding. It was as if the pictures had been commissioned for something else and as an afterthought had been assembled into a collection to be passed off as a piece of children’s literature.
Tristofer turned to the page depicting the catastrophe and held his breath. The king! The king was shown holding his hammer and it was a much better close-up than little Trindolyn’s book had ever been. There, clutched tightly in the king’s hand, was the power hammer with the red jewel clearly visible on the tool’s head. Also visible was the small sharp point that comprised the other side of the hammer head. Next to the point was...
“Who has that metal thing from the lake?” Tristopher excitedly asked.
Athos and Venk both shrugged and held up their hands, palms up. They di
dn’t have it.
“Breslin?”
Maelnar’s son pulled his pack over to him and began rifling through its contents.
“Here it is. What’s the problem?”
“No problem. None whatsoever. In fact, I think we just had several questions answered. Look. Look here!”
Everyone crowded around the book and looked at what Tristopher was pointing at.
“It’s the king’s hammer,” Venk told him. “I remember looking at this when Maelnar showed all of us his granddaughter’s book. So what?”
“But it’s not the same picture, is it?”
Venk stared at the book with a blank expression. Athos merely shrugged.
“Trust me, it isn’t. Look at the hammer. You can see much more detail in this illustration!”
Venk raised his eyes and met Tristopher’s. “Fine. It isn’t quite the same. What’s your point?”
“Look at the hammer! Or more specifically, look at the hammer’s head! See this right here? It’s the object we were given by the nixies! It’s the hammer’s counterweight!”
Tristofer placed the square metal disk and the ruby whorl down on the book next to the hammer’s pictograph.
Intrigued, Breslin stared at the hammer. The flat square block adjacent to the tapered point did resemble the gift from the nixies. And if the ruby whorl was viewed straight down from the top it did resemble a normal gem. It could be a match for the gem depicted on the power hammer, but if so, why the curlicue shape? Was the gem supposed to be embedded inside the hammer somehow?
Breslin scowled. Was that what they were doing? Tracking down pieces of an ancient hammer?
“After all this time, there’s the proof,” Tristofer proudly declared. “We have the weight and we have the gem. Each piece is leading us to the next. This is remarkable!”
Breslin wasn’t convinced.
“Remarkable my arse. The purpose of this whole expedition is just to find pieces of a hammer? What about Nar? I don’t care about some ruddy hammer.”
“I think it’s remarkable all right,” Athos grumbled.
Tristofer beamed with pleasure.
“Thank you.”
“It’s a remarkable waste of time.”
“Excuse me,” Venk interjected. “The reason we’re here is to get that blasted mark of my son’s back. If we find pieces to some hammer, fine. If we find Nar, so what? I’m only interested in helping Lukas.”
Tristofer’s smile vanished.
“What is wrong with you people? This is a Narian power hammer! Think of all the advances in metallurgy we could learn if we could produce an actual, honest to goodness power hammer from Nar? Why, it would be worth more than its weight in gold! We’d be famous! Songs would be sung about us!”
Athos shook his head. “Not the songs I’d want to hear about.”
“What I’m saying is, this is an important discovery! We cannot turn back now. We are so close!”
Breslin approached the scholar and gave him a condescending pat on his shoulder.
“Let me see if I have this straight. A Questor’s Mark appears on a boy’s back. It turns out to be a map leading us all across the countryside. We think we’re being led to Nar but it turns out we’re on a scavenger hunt for pieces of an ancient tool. Did I leave anything out?”
“Umm, er, you forgot to mention that we were carried across most of the kingdom by dragons. That must account for something!”
Breslin’s face actually turned a few shades of green.
“That’s an experience I do not ever want to be reminded about. Ever.”
Tristofer sighed and sank down onto the closest log. He rubbed his temples. “Fair enough, fair enough. Before you come to any decisions, think of how much we all can benefit from studying the hammer! It could pulverize the hardest stone with one blow! How? Because of the metal the Narians used? Maybe it has something to do with the jewel? Or perhaps something else we aren’t even aware of yet. Any way you look at it, this is an adventure we should see through, regardless of whether or not the prize at the end is a hammer or Nar itself.”
Breslin sat down next to the scholar and began twirling the tip of his beard around a finger.
“Tell me this. Honestly. Do you now feel like we’re still searching for Nar or are we now searching for this hammer of yours?”
Tristofer’s eyes dropped to the flickering flames in the hearth.
“I believe we’re looking for pieces to the hammer. As much as I’d like to think it’ll lead us to Nar, clearly our goal is to find all the pieces and re-assemble the hammer. Deep down, I still think that there might be some other purpose to this. I mean, why else would the Questor’s Mark appear? Why now? But until we can find evidence that suggests otherwise, I’ll settle for finding the hammer. If we’re allowed to continue, that is.”
Breslin nodded, pleased. It was what he now believed, too, and judging by the looks of the others, it was what everyone now believed. However, he didn’t think the scholar would have admitted to him that he had felt the same way. The fact that Tristofer did confirm his own suspicions made him respect the absent-minded book lover a little more. Just a little.
“We continue on,” Breslin decided.
“Whatever for?” Athos demanded, crossing his arms over his chest.
“For the reason Master Venk has said. The primary reason for this excursion is to rid young Lukas of his disfiguring mark. Besides, we cannot ignore the secondary purpose: from a metallurgical standpoint, this hammer comes from a more advanced culture than our own. My father will want to study it. Everyone will want to study it. Who knows? It may someday lead us to Nar itself, but until that day comes, we will not turn our backs. We continue on.”
“You’re just as nuts as he is,” Athos observed, hooking a thumb back at Tristofer. “Very well. We keep going. This had better be one spectacular hammer.”
“Oh, it’s so much more than that,” Tristofer began. “It can...
“Not now,” Breslin interrupted.
Tristofer bowed. “Right. Sorry.”
Breslin clapped his hands together and vigorously rubbed them back and forth. “Shall we see where we’re heading next? Master Lukas, if you please.”
Lukas pulled his jerkin up to his chin and faced the other direction.
“I’ll bet the top right is next,” Tristofer guessed, indicating which section of the map he thought would appear next.
“Lower right,” Athos disagreed.
“I’ll take center,” Venk added.
“What’s the wager?” Athos wanted to know.
“Wager?” Tristofer sputtered. “I’m not wagering.”
Unfazed by Tristofer’s reluctance to play, Athos pushed him out of their circle. Breslin took his place.
“I want in on this.” Breslin tapped the top right. “I think Tristofer is right. For once,” he added under his breath. “I think the right side of the map is next.”
Venk held out a hand. “May I?”
Breslin nodded. He plucked the gem out of Tristofer’s hands and gave the whorl to Venk, who gently touched the jewel to his son’s bare back. Surprising them all, the far right section of the map, stretching from top to bottom, intensified and came into focus. A line of gray smudges still separated the different sections of the mark. Ignoring what that could possibly mean, Breslin turned his attention to the newest section of the map that had been revealed.
It was a waterfall.
A tall, majestic waterfall had appeared running alongside the right vertical border of the Questor’s Mark. At the top of the waterfall they could see tiny trees on either side of the falling water. Judging by the size of the trees, the waterfall had to be at least two hundred feet high.
“Does anyone know how many waterfalls there are in Lentari?” Athos asked, turning to face his companions.
Lost City Page 22