by A. Giannetti
To amuse himself, Ascilius made a great show of holding his right hand in the flames while warming his food, delightedly observing Elerian’s envious gaze through sidelong eyes.
Full of warm food and strong wine, Ascilius eventually extinguished his magic fire. By the light of a tiny mage light, which Ascilius set to hover above his head, he and Elerian dressed themselves in their clothes which were now warm and dry again. Then, wrapped in his cloak, Ascilius extinguished his light and lay down to sleep, comfortable in the knowledge that Elerian would keep watch all night.
Sitting cross legged in front of the entrance to the tree trunk, with his back to Ascilius, Elerian called his crystal orb into his left hand. With his third eye, he saw the familiar silvery glow cover the sphere.
“Put that thing away,” said Ascilius suddenly. He was not quite asleep yet and had guessed what it was that Elerian was bent over. “Who knows what may appear inside of it,” he said fearfully as he thought of the great, fierce eye that he had seen in the orb the last time he held it.
“More than likely, it will not show me anything,” said Elerian without turning around, but even as he spoke, he saw the silver film of light covering the globe suddenly dim. Closing his third eye, Elerian saw that the interior of the globe was lit as if by starlight. He found himself looking down at a fierce battle that was taking place on a darkened plain. There was no sound, but Elerian could easily imagine the horns blowing, the clash of steel, and the battle cries that must fill the air. As he bent over to take a closer look at the violent struggle, the scene vanished, and in its place, he suddenly saw her again.
She was in a high place again, alone beneath the night sky. A silver fillet, with a faceted emerald in its center, circled her brow, but beneath the great jewel, her face seemed pale and wan tonight. The sadness in her dark eyes pierced Elerian to the heart. The orb suddenly went dark, but with his mind’s eye, he could still see her face, as if her image still resided in the depths of the orb. Elerian suddenly became aware that Ascilius was standing behind him.
Against his better judgment, the Dwarf had left his blankets and looked unwillingly into the sphere over Elerian’s right shoulder. He had missed the battle and had caught only a brief glimpse of the face of the woman, but what he had seen was enough to concern him.
“Elerian,” he said with unaccustomed seriousness, “I promised to help you find this maid, but I would not have you disappointed. Judging by the jewel that she wore, she is someone of high rank,” he said delicately.
“Meaning she is out of reach of a poor, half-blooded wanderer,” said Elerian softly, but there was no rancor in his voice.
“Such is the way of the world,” said Ascilius sadly. “Wealth and rank or the lack of it may count for more in her eyes and the eyes of her people than any personal valor or magical ability.”
Elerian shrugged and sent the orb away.
“She may not even exist,” he said lightly to Ascilius. “I wrought the orb to show the past as well as the present. She may have lived in the Middle Realm long ago. Sleep now and I will keep watch.”
Ascilius returned to his bed, and Elerian also lay down. His body rested, but his mind remained aware of all that went on around him even as he wandered the paths of his memories.
The night passed peacefully. Elerian woke Ascilius even as the first faint rays of the sun began to thin the darkness that filled the forest around them. After a cold breakfast and a drink of clear water from the stream, they were on their way again, traveling east, ever deeper and higher into the mountains. Mixed groves of oak, ash, and chestnut gave way to a thick forest of fir trees on the upper slopes. The sharp clean smell of their resin filled the air as Elerian and Ascilius walked silently over a carpet of brown needles, shed by the trees in years past.
Eventually, the firs thinned out and vanished too. The two companions were now confronted with bare, rocky slopes and small meadows of tall grass mixed with wildflowers. Directly in front of them was the saddle that Ascilius had pointed out earlier. Elerian called his ring to his finger and he and Ascilius vanished from sight under cover of its invisibility spell. Together they left the shelter of the trees and began to walk toward the pass ahead of them.
THE PASS
It was late in the day when Ascilius and Elerian reached the crest of the pass. Below them, half the narrow valley that lay at the foot of the mountain was already covered by shadows, for the sun was already dropping down into the west behind them.
The valley, which ran northeast to southwest, looked a dreary place to Elerian, reminding him at once of Nefandus, for it was covered with coarse grass, interspersed with expanses of flat gray stone and a few isolated thorn brakes. A paved road ran the length of the valley, the northern end disappearing through a gap in the mountains and the southern end vanishing into a similar pass between two tall peaks. After circling the right flank of the mountain on which Elerian and Ascilius stood, a second road joined the first near the foot of a tall, desolate mountain on the far side of the valley. Its summit reared high above the other peaks crowded close around it. In the side of the mountain, near the junction of the roads, Elerian could see gates protected by a tower on each side.
“That is the Goblin road that runs through Fimbria,” said Ascilius pointing with an invisible hand to the road on their right. The road that runs north and south through the valley is the Via Magna. At the junction of the two roads in front of Albior, the tall mountain across from us, lies Calenus.
“Before I was captured, the Dwarves still held all the land up to the edge of the northern pass into the valley. If we can somehow cross the mountains, we should have a safe route all the way to Ennodius.”
“And just how do you propose we reach the exit to the valley?” asked Elerian. “The countryside before us appears unguarded, but I am sure that is not the case.”
Elerian had the strong feeling that, even now, unseen eyes from the fortress under Albior were scouring the valley and the hillsides below them for anything unusual.
“Why not travel around the valley through the foothills until we reach the northern end?” he suggested.
“Too difficult,” said Ascilius, shaking his head. “Without ropes and climbing gear, we would never make it through. There may be Trolls in the mountains, too. Our best chance is to skirt the edge of the valley during the day under the protection of your ring.”
The thought of crossing all that distance out in the open made Elerian uneasy, but he had no other plan to offer. Ending his invisibility spell, for it was growing dark, he gazed across the six or so miles that separated them from the front gates of the fortress with his far seeing eyes,. The shadows cast by the setting sun reached the gates of the fortress, and almost immediately, the harsh braying of Goblin horns shattered the quiet that lay over the landscape. Troops of Goblins and mutare issued from the gates like swarming ants, some setting off east, toward Fimbria, and others south, toward Ancharia. Lines of wagons issued from the gates behind them. On his right, Elerian saw wagons appear on the Goblin road that circled the flank of the mountain, doubtlessly carrying supplies to Calenus. Most worrisome to Elerian were the small groups of Wood Goblins that set off for the foothills in all directions, packs of canigrae at their heels.
“Sleep then and I will keep watch,” said Elerian to Ascilius, “but be ready to move if those patrols climb toward us.”
Wrapping himself in his cloak, Ascilius lay down to sleep at the base of a spur of rock. With his back to a small boulder, Elerian remained still as the stone behind him as a half moon rose, casting its silvery light over the valley below him. The wagons and troops on the roads eventually disappeared, but the Goblin patrols remained active. He saw them, occasionally, on the slopes in front of him, but none of them reached high enough to worry him.
At first light, the Goblins retreated into the fortress. Elerian rose and woke Ascilius. After a cold breakfast, they set out under the protection of Elerian’s ring, walking at first across fields of loose
rock and steep, mountain meadows where the bright sun was just burning the dew off the tall grass. Farther down the mountain, they entered a wilderness of tangled, thorny brush and weeds that had sprung up in between the stumps of trees that had been cut and hauled off to serve the needs of the Goblins. A great sadness filled Elerian as he looked at the wanton destruction, and a grim picture formed in his mind of what the Middle Realm would look like if it all fell under the sway of Torquatus and his armies.
They were a long time making their way through the barrier of brush, for there were no easy paths and the thorny thickets seemed bent on resisting their every step.
“Do the thorn bushes follow the Goblins of their own accord or are they planted by the Goblins on purpose?” wondered Elerian aloud as they toiled through dense thickets under the intense rays of the sun.
“It all comes to the same thing in the end,” said a hot and irritated Ascilius. “Where you find one, you will find the other.”
Eventually, they struck a broad, grass-covered path in the middle of the tangle, a rude track that the Goblins had used to haul wood down the mountain. The going was easier here, but Elerian followed the path warily. When he neared the base of the mountain, he had reason to be glad of his caution. As he stepped lightly down the path behind Ascilius, his keen ears caught the faint chink of metal on metal from somewhere ahead of them. Reaching out at once, he seized the back of Ascilius’s leather shirt so that the Dwarf was forced to stop abruptly. Ascilius remained perfectly still and spoke no word.
“There is someone ahead of us,” Elerian whispered softly in his right ear.
Moving silently over the turf-covered path, he and Ascilius eased forward, a little at a time, probing ahead of them with their eyes and ears. Even so, they almost missed the sentries. A slight rustle of leather drew Elerian’s attention to an outcrop of gray stone a little distance to the left of the path. He stared intently at the thicket of thorn bushes that screened the base of the outcrop. The slight rustle of leaves came to his ears as something shifted its position behind them.
“There must be sentries stationed there for some reason,” thought Elerian to himself. “Have we been seen,” he wondered, “or is this some place that is normally watched?”
He decided to investigate further on his own.
“Wait here,” he said softly to Ascilius. “Stay hidden, for you will no longer be invisible after I leave,” he warned.
Ascilius quietly left the path and hid himself in a thicket without argument, for he knew that he could not move as silently as Elerian through the brush.
After Ascilius was well hidden, Elerian withdrew the protection of his ring from the Dwarf and left the trail, climbing silently across the face of the slope. With a patience honed by working in the Goblins’ mines, he slowly eased through the thorn thickets that barred his path until he was above the flat top of the outcrop at the base of which he suspected the sentries were hiding. Stepping from the slope onto the bare stone of the outcrop, Elerian crept stealthily forward until he could lean over the edge of the outcrop and look down.
Below him, he saw two Goblins resting their backs against the face of the stone. Although they wore black hoods over their heads to protect them from the harmful rays of the sun, Elerian guessed them to be Mordi, for they were short, barely taller than Ascilius. Both Goblins had curved iron horns hanging from their left shoulders by leather straps. Even under the protection of his ring, Elerian doubted that he and Ascilius could make their way past the alert sentries undetected.
“Better to retreat and try another path,” he thought to himself.
Silently, he straightened up. As he stepped back from the edge, something suddenly struck him hard between the shoulder blades, knocking the wind out of him, and sending him flying over the edge of the outcrop.
Elerian twisted around in mid-air as strong, hairy arms wrapped around him in a powerful embrace. Springy, thorny branches broke Elerian’s fall, but the wind was still driven out of his chest by the weight of the heavy creature above him. Gasping for breath, he groped blindly with his left hand, closing around a hairy, heavily muscled throat. Elerian held his arm rigid, fending long, yellowed fangs that strained to reach his face. Savage snarls and grunts filled his ears, and a foul odor washed over him, sickening him as powerful, hairy hands wrapped around his own throat, seeking to squeeze the life out of him. With his right hand, Elerian drew his knife from his belt, thrusting the long blade into the hairy body above him.
When the mutare fell to the ground in front of them, struggling with an invisible enemy, the sentries leaped to their feet, drawing their black bladed swords from their scabbards with a rasp of steel on leather. Elerian would have been stabbed repeatedly then had Ascilius not suddenly run down the track. Before the startled Mordi could react to his presence, Ascilius’s ax whistled twice through the air, first right and then left on the back swing. A pair of Goblin heads rolled upon the ground as Elerian pushed the lifeless body of the mutare away from him. His knife had pierced the creature’s savage heart.
Hastily, Elerian covered Ascilius with the invisibility spell cast by his silver ring.
“Did anyone see you,” he asked worriedly as he stood and examined the slopes below them with his sharp, gray eyes.
“I do not care who saw me,” asserted Ascilius fiercely, nostrils flaring and a red glint in the back of his dark eyes. “I saw the mutare spring on something at the top of the outcrop and guessed that it must be you. I’ll not hide in the bushes while a comrade needs help.”
“I suppose I should consider myself fortunate that Dwarves are so bloodthirsty,” said Elerian cheerfully. “If you had not shown up, the Mordi would have poked me full of holes with their swords.”
Ascilius frowned, the red gleam fading from his eyes as he tried to work out whether Elerian had given him a complement.
“Dwarves are not bloodthirsty,” he said haughtily. “We merely like to be in the thick of things.”
“I would wager a bag of gold that you would pass up a cask of wine to hew Goblin necks,” said Elerian dryly.
“It would depend on the vintage,” said Ascilius after a moment’s serious consideration.
Elerian smiled and shook his head, giving up the argument.
“Let us hide these bodies,” he suggested as he grasped the mutare by the wrist and began dragging the heavy changeling out of the thicket.
Ascilius followed close behind him, dragging a Wood Goblin by the ankle with each hand. It was a strain on his powers, but Elerian managed to conceal himself and Ascilius as well as the three bodies under the invisible mantle cast by his ring. Occasionally, a disembodied arm or leg appeared briefly as it slipped out from beneath the spell, but Elerian was confident that it was not enough to give them away to anyone watching the slopes from a distance.
They hid the three bodies in a nearby thicket, but they did not go to a great deal of trouble to conceal them. It mattered little if they were discovered once Elerian and Ascilius were safe on the north road to Ennodius.
“I wonder why these sentries were stationed here?” asked Elerian when they returned to the track that led to the valley below. “This road seems an unlikely place for the Goblins to be guarding. Do you think Calenus has been warned about us?”
“I doubt it,” said Ascilius, probing the seemingly empty landscape before them. “Goblins are suspicious folk. I would be surprised if all the ways into the valley are not guarded as a matter of course.”
“In that case, even under the cover of my ring, it may be too dangerous to try and reach the valley,” said Elerian.
“We have no other choice,” insisted Ascilius. “We can leave the track if that will make you happier.”
“Nothing will make me happy except to leave this place,” thought Elerian to himself as he followed Ascilius into the thorn thickets to the right of the path.
Slowly and carefully, suffering many a scratch and cut from the fierce thorns, they made their way down to the valley flo
or under a hot sun. Despite the prickly heat which they endured, Elerian was comforted by the fact that even someone with mage sight would have been hard put to discover them in the bright sunlight. Ahead of him, he saw Ascilius as only the palest of golden shades when he opened his third eye.
When they reached the valley floor, they stopped on a slight rise. Crouching behind a screen of brush, they looked out across the valley, which appeared to be deserted. With his far seeing eyes, Elerian saw the entrance to Calenus directly across from them, on the lower slopes of Albior, a distance of about ten miles. Two thick towers reared up against the base of a steep cliff. They were connected forty feet above the ground by a balcony guarded by low parapet. Beneath the balcony were two enormous steel doors, midnight black in color.
“Those are odd doors for a Dwarf fortress,” said Elerian to Ascilius. “I did not know that Dwarves favored black steel.”
“They are not the original gates,” said Ascilius quietly.
He was silent for a moment, as if calling up old, painful memories. When he spoke again, his face had hardened and faint red sparks flickered in the back of his dark eyes.
“The original gates of the city were made of polished steel that shone like mirrors in the sunlight,” he said slowly, as if recalling a memory from the distant past. “They were meant to be a symbol of the friendship that existed then between the Elves and the Dwarves. The door on the left was cast with the shape of a beech tree on it, traced in silvery argentum in deference to the Elves. The door on the right was cast with a hammer and anvil on it to represent the Dwarves. There were no towers or other defenses then, for the strength of a Dwarf gate lies in the spells that protect it. Once such a gate is closed, it is proof even against dragon fire.