by A. Giannetti
THE CAVE
Later that day, it began to rain, one of those steady, drizzling rains so common in the spring. The rain was helpful because it washed away all signs of Ascilius’s and Elerian’s passage through the forest, but it also dampened their clothes and their spirits. When night fell, they were forced to camp in the open beneath a wide spreading oak, the only shelter that they could find. Cold and dripping wet, they sat huddled against the rough bark of the tree, eating dried meat from their packs. Even the wine with which Elerian filled their water bottles failed to cheer them up, although it did warm their bodies somewhat.
“I could cast a shield spell to keep the rain off,” Elerian suggested to Ascilius as they crouched under their sodden cloaks. “If you started one of your magical fires, we could dry off then.”
“It is too dangerous for a fire,” said Ascilius shortly. The Goblin attack of the other night was still fresh in his mind, and he was in an uncertain temper from the rain the cold, which he felt more deeply than Elerian. “Now that we know there are Wood Goblins abroad in the forest, we must be extremely cautious and not take any more unnecessary risks,” he continued in a voice that brooked no argument.
Elerian felt disappointed at Ascilius’s refusal to light a fire, but he had no good counterargument for Ascilius’s cautious words.
“Rain and a grumpy Dwarf for company, can anything be worse?” he asked himself silently as he retreated into the dream paths in his mind where the sun shone on the beech groves of vanished Fimbria.
As he shifted about trying to get comfortable between two tree roots, Ascilius glared at Elerian, half hoping for an argument, but Elerian never moved. It always unnerved Ascilius to see him in that state. Although he was sitting up and his eyes were open, the Dwarf knew that his mind was far away from his body, no longer aware of the rain and the cold but able to return to awareness at the slightest sight or sound of danger.
Ascilius soon found that he was too uncomfortable to sleep. Cold rain seeped through his cloak, and the ground seemed even harder than usual. By the time a gray, sodden dawn broke, he was as surly as an old bear with a tooth ache.
After a cold breakfast, Ascilius and Elerian traveled through a gray curtain of rain with their wolf skin cloaks gathered close about them. Depressed by the wet, gray forest around him, Ascilius sank deeper and deeper into a gloomy silence as he thought for the first time in years of the warm, bright rooms of his underground apartments in Ennodius and the bountiful meals that he had eaten there.
To annoy Ascilius and to amuse himself, Elerian cast a shield spell over himself. Watching for Ascilius’s reaction out of the corner of his eyes, Elerian positioned himself where the Dwarf could not help but observe the water running off of his face and body as if it was covered by a thin film of oil. Ascilius paid no attention at all, however, being so deeply immersed in his own misery that he never looked at Elerian at all.
Disappointed, Elerian ended his spell, for beneath it, he was still cold and wet, and it was a waste of his power if it did not serve to irritate Ascilius. He walked all day in silence beside his grumpy companion, the rain continuing unabated. When it grew dark, Elerian and Ascilius camped for the night next to the trunk of an enormous oak tree, settling themselves in for another miserable night between two twisting roots the size of small tree trunks. It was still far too wet for an ordinary fire, but despite the cold and the rain, Ascilius stubbornly refused to light a magical fire to dry their clothes.
“You are the most stubborn, unreasonable Dwarf to walk the face of the Middle Realm,” shouted Elerian, his patience at an end. “If you will not make a fire, then I will no longer make any spirits. You can drink water from now on.”
He and Ascilius glared at each other, as close to blows as they had ever come over the long years they had known each other. For the rest of the night, a sullen silence reigned between them as Elerian walked the dream paths and Ascilius tossed and turned in a vain effort to escape the wet and the cold.
In the morning, the rain slowed but did not stop completely. Breakfast was a sketchy affair, for their supply of dried meat was almost gone. There was almost no chance that Elerian would be able to replenish it, for the rain had driven all the game under cover, and the forest streams were murky and overflowing their banks, making fishing impossible.
By the end of the day, they were reduced to eating mushrooms which they had gathered as they walked, eating them raw since Ascilius still obstinately refused to start a fire when they stopped for the night under another tree. Again, they spent the night wrapped in their sodden cloaks, refusing to speak to one another.
Fortunately, on the morning of the fourth day of their journey, the storm clouds finally broke apart, their dark, tattered remnants scudding toward the east, driven by a brisk wind. The sun shone brightly through the gaps in the clouds, although it did not penetrate to the ground beneath the forest canopy. Cold, hungry, and wet, Elerian and Ascilius left their uncomfortable camp. They had not spoken now in two days.
Elerian left Ascilius’s side almost immediately to hunt, but he could not deny to himself that he was glad to be away from his surly companion. He traveled south through the canopy until he came to a small meadow. There, he descended to the ground and sat in the sun for a time, drying his clothes and warming his bones. As the cold and wet left his clothes and his body, Elerian’s natural good temper reasserted itself.
“If only I had something to eat, I would not feel half bad,” he thought to himself, for hunger was now a gnawing ache in his belly.
Taking to the canopy again, he began to hunt, traveling west through groves of oaks and chestnuts.
“There ought to be wild pigs in this country,” thought Elerian to himself, but he hunted the rest of the day without success. Then, just as the last light of the setting sun was fading away, he took a small boar with one of his arrows as it rooted in a grove of oak trees for mushrooms and any of last year’s nuts that had escaped the attention of the squirrels.
After dressing the boar and cutting several green ash sticks to spit the meat on, he retraced his steps, traveling east until he reached the place where he had first veered away from the southerly route that he and Ascilius were following. Descending to the ground, Elerian walked in widening circles through the darkness that was no obstacle to his eyes until he found Ascilius’s foot prints. While he hunted to the west, Ascilius had passed him, still traveling south. Elerian easily tracked the Dwarf through a world of gray and black to the base of a small hill, an outlier of the mountains, which were now only a day’s travel to the east.
Concealed behind a screen of brush, Elerian found Ascilius’s cloak draped over the side of the hill. When he lifted a corner of it, a wave of warmth washed over him and a cheerful, ruddy light greeted his eyes. Elerian saw that there was a shallow cave behind the cloak. Ascilius had kindled one of his red fires in the back of it and was sitting between the fire and the back wall of the cave, warming his hands over the flames.
“Close off the opening,” said Ascilius grumpily, “before the light from the fire gives us away.”
“There is no one to see it,” thought Elerian to himself, for he had traveled far that day without seeing a single sign of a Goblin or any other enemy, but he held his tongue, instead offering Ascilius the carcass of the boar and the branches he had cut.
Ascilius cheered up a little at the sight of the food. He immediately began preparing their meal by spitting cuts of meat on the sticks and roasting them over his fire. Elerian, meanwhile, left the cave and filled their water bottles from a small spring that welled up nearby out of the side of the hill. He cast a transformation spell over each container, turning the clear water inside it into a rich red wine.
“Perhaps this will cheer up the old grump,” thought Elerian to himself, cheerful again at the thought of a fire and warm food. He returned to the cave, and before long, he and Ascilius sat drinking on opposite sides of the fire, all the hard feelings of the past two days forgotten.
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“How did you find this place?” asked Elerian as Ascilius handed him a stick with a succulent, well-browned piece of pork on the end of it.
“I stumbled across it when I was exploring the hill,” replied Ascilius around a mouthful of pork. “I thought there might be a cave in its sides, and of course, I was right.”
“I see you changed your mind about a fire,” Elerian could not help adding.
“There is an enormous difference between lighting a fire in the open and lighting one in a cave,” said Ascilius dismissively as he wolfed down another slice of tender pork. “No one is likely to discover us with my cloak draped over the entrance.”
Raising his water bottle, Ascilius downed a great swallow of wine, leaning back while he did so. When his shoulders came to rest against the cave wall that was right behind him, Elerian saw a thin line of silver appear in the stone behind Ascilius, outlining a square shape like a door. Before Elerian could shout a warning, the section of wall within the silver line swung backwards, like a door on hinges, and Ascilius fell back through the opening, a startled look on his face. Elerian had a brief glimpse of a small, dimly lit chamber before unseen hands whisked Ascilius out of sight. The door slammed shut with an ominous thud.
The silver thread outlining the door faded, but a round, clear area, like a window pane with a thin, silver border, appeared in the stone wall behind which Ascilius had vanished. Framed in the window was a pale, thin face with dark, malevolent eyes.
Elerian leapt to his feet, but by then, the window and the Goblin face behind it had vanished. Drawing his knife, Elerian tried to step around the fire in order to approach the back wall, but tongues of flame, freed from Ascilius’s control, flared up hungrily, reaching out ravenous fingers for his legs. He stepped back, staring at the fire with a baffled look on his face, for he had no idea how to put it out.
“I must get past it,” thought Elerian urgently to himself. “Who knows what is happening to Ascilius at this very moment.”
Calling his ring to his hand, Elerian vanished from sight. Springing suddenly high into the air, he leapt over the flames, which reached blindly for him, twisting like red serpents. Elerian felt a moment of heat through his thin soled shoes before he landed lightly on the far side of the flames. Touching the stone, where the door had appeared, with the fingers of his right hand, he saw the silver line become visible again, outlining the door through which Ascilius had disappeared. Elerian tried pushing the door open, but it remained firmly closed. He cast an opening spell, but the door still refused to open.
“The Goblins must have locked it,” thought Elerian impatiently to himself.
Throwing caution to the winds, he cast a second spell, more powerful then the first. A small golden orb of light sped from his right hand, covering all the gray stone between the silver lines with a mantle of golden light. The air around Elerian seemed to tremble. Then, with a sharp crack, the stone outlined by the silver lines fractured, falling to the ground to form a small mound of rubble.
“The lock held, but the stone gave way,” thought Elerian to himself as he leaped lightly over the remains of the door.
He found himself standing in the small chamber he had glimpsed earlier. It was dimly illuminated by a flickering yellow torch set in a wall bracket. In front of him was a low opening leading out of the chamber. Standing in front of the opening was a frightened Mordi with a long black bladed knife held out before him, clutched in his trembling right hand. The Wood Goblin could not see Elerian, who was hidden by the invisibility spell cast by his ring, but he must have sensed that there was someone in the room, for his staring eyes darted wildly about the space behind the ruined door.
“Quickly now,” thought Elerian to himself. “In a moment, his nerve will break and he will run away.”
Elerian pounced on the Goblin, deftly seizing the Mordi’s wrist with his left hand in an iron grip. The Goblin’s knife clattered to the ground, falling from his numb hand. Elerian wrapped his right hand around the startled Mordi’s neck, lifting him several inches off the ground before shaking him violently.
“Where is the Dwarf?” asked Elerian in an ominous voice.
Instead of answering, the Mordi gave out an angry hiss, reaching up with the clawed fingers of his left hand to tear at Elerian’s invisible face. In his haste to learn Ascilius’s whereabouts, Elerian had overlooked the Goblin’s free hand, counting on his invisible state to cow the creature. The Goblin’s claws scored Elerian’s brow before slicing down the right side of his face, narrowly missing his eye. Fearing a second swipe of the creature’s claws, Elerian gave a sharp wrench on the Goblin’s slender neck and heard a dull snap. As he dropped the lifeless Mordi, Elerian felt a warm rush of blood down the side of his face that obscured the vision in his right eye.
“I cannot go on like this,” thought Elerian to himself. The flowing blood prevented him from seeing properly, and the wounds on his face had begun to burn, as if they were on fire.
Cursing the lost time, hoping there was no poison in his wounds; Elerian sent a healing spell into the gashes inflicted by the Mordi. As soon as the flow of blood ceased and the pain subsided somewhat, Elerian ended his spell and exited to the chamber, leaving his wounds half healed rather than wasting any more time.
“That was a near thing,” Elerian thought to himself shakily as, filled with anxiety for Ascilius because of the delay, he ran on silent feet down the low tunnel in front of him. “My haste nearly cost me an eye and delayed me in the bargain. It was lucky for me that the Mordi was alone.”
Elerian was forced to bend over slightly as he ran, for the passageway was more suitable in height for a Wood Goblin or a Dwarf than someone of his height. When the light from the torch in the chamber behind him faded, Elerian was forced to stop. Even his marvelous eyes needed some light to see by, however faint it might be. Rather than chance a mage light, which might reveal his presence, Elerian opened his magical third eye instead. With his mage sight, he saw the dead black walls and floor of the tunnel clearly, for they were illuminated by the light produced by his golden shade. With his shade casting its light ahead of him, Elerian began to run again, anxiously following the tunnel as it wound its way into the hillside.
A patch of ruddy light suddenly appeared in the distance, resolving itself into the entrance to a large cavern when Elerian drew near to it. The sound of wicked laughter came to his ears. Resuming his normal sight, for there was light to see by now, Elerian pressed his back against the left hand wall of the tunnel and edged up to the entryway. When he looked through it, he saw a large chamber before him. It was nearly a hundred feet across with a ceiling at least twenty feet high.
A bonfire burned in the center of the cavern, its flames sending flickering shadows leaping up the walls. Above the fire, a great pall of blue gray smoke hung under the ceiling, slowly exiting through some unseen crevice. On either side of the fire was a sturdy iron support, forked on the end. Lying on the floor in front of the fire was a great was a great iron rod, seven or eight feet long and pointed at one end.
The laughter Elerian had heard came from a dozen rough looking Mordi clad in shabby black leather clothes who were gathered in a group to the right of the bonfire. Behind them, Elerian saw a small keg set up on a trestle table, near the back wall of the cavern. The Goblins were drinking from wooden cups and seemed in high spirits, for they were joking and laughing amongst themselves.
Just then, Elerian heard a familiar voice, filled with rage. The Goblins spread apart, and lying at their feet trussed securely hand and foot, Elerian saw a naked, furious Ascilius. He was struggling to break free of his bonds and making threats against the Mordi in a loud, angry voice. Laughing uproariously, two of the Wood Goblins left the group and picked up the heavy, iron spit lying on the floor by the fire.
“You will bellow even louder my fine Dwarf when the iron touches your flesh,” shouted one of the Goblins to Ascilius as he and his fellows suddenly seized the Dwarf and lifted him into the air, roarin
g and struggling so vigorously that it took half a dozen of the Mordi to hold him still.
Laughing and shouting the Goblins pinched Ascilius’s flesh with their cruel talons to goad him even further as they turned him so that his feet pointed toward the Mordi approaching with the spit.
“Thrust home the spit, but not too quickly,” ordered the Goblin, who had spoken before. Elerian guessed him to be the leader of the ragged group. “I would see him squirm a little for the insults he cast at me.”
All around Ascilius malicious Goblin faces, red sparks dancing in their dark eyes, watched in anticipation as their two fellows prepared to thrust the cruel point of the iron rod into Ascilius’s body. Ascilius ceased his bellows and hardened his craggy features, determined not to show any signs of the suffering he was about to endure. The two Goblins holding the spit lined it up to their satisfaction, but just as they were about to thrust it home, one and then the other suddenly stiffened and sagged to the ground. The great bar slipped from their nerveless fingers and clanged on the floor.
Knowing that he had only moments in which to act, Elerian had raced silently across the cavern as soon as he saw that Ascilius was to be made the main course for a Goblin feast. He had struck twice with his knife, piercing the hearts of the Mordi carrying the spit. Even as they fell dead in their tracks, he sheathed his knife and tore Ascilius away from the grip of the stunned Wood Goblins.
Carrying Ascilius over his right shoulder, Elerian fled back toward the entrance to the cavern. Behind him, the confused Wood Goblins gaped at the sight of the naked Dwarf flying through the air without any visible means of support. By the time they recovered their wits, Elerian had already reached the mouth of the exit. Turning around, he cast a spell of destruction at one of the logs in the bonfire.
It was a long way for a spell to travel, but Elerian’s aim was good. As he dove into the tunnel entrance, still carrying Ascilius, the log exploded with a thunderous crack that echoed through the cavern like a lightning strike. The fire burst into a thousand fragments, sending flaming coals and deadly splinters flying around the chamber. The keg of spirits exploded next, with a sound like a thunderclap. Elerian heard several splinters pass over his head with an ugly whine, and he flattened himself and Ascilius even closer to the cold stone floor of the tunnel.