The Warrior (The Hidden Realm)

by A. Giannetti

  “Each layer of the city resembles a great wagon wheel. The hub in the center is a great spiral ramp that rises up through the various layers, and the spokes that radiate out from the hub are wide streets that lead to the outer rim that is itself another avenue. Depending on the level, the wedges between the spokes or streets contain shops, workshops, inns, homes and all of the other elements that comprise any other city. The bottommost layer always contains the stables and the mine entrances. That is where we are bound for now. We will enter the stables through another hidden door and then follow the mine shafts that lead from the stables east, until we come out on the far side of Albior.”

  “What if the stables are guarded?” asked Elerian quietly.

  “Then we will fight our way through!” said Ascilius fiercely. “I did not come all this way to turn back now.”

  At that moment, they were both distracted by a sudden expansion in the size of the tunnel. It grew abruptly into a wide corridor at least twenty feet wide and ten feet high, but it remained as featureless as the passageway they had just left.

  “What is the purpose of such an enormous corridor in a secret passageway?” Elerian could not help but ask.

  “Watch and you will see,” said Ascilius, his voice suddenly taking on a crafty tone. He stopped suddenly and, for the first time, appeared uncertain, carefully examining the floor of the tunnel before him.

  Acting on a sudden hunch, Elerian opened his third eye and saw that the floor before them, for a distance of many feet, was blanketed by a golden film of light. Running through the center of the patch of light was a dark line no more than a foot wide.

  “An illusion spell,” thought Elerian to himself at once. “The spell is drawing its power from our bodies,” was his next thought when he noticed that two thin threads of gold ran from the mantle covering the floor to his and Ascilius’s feet.

  “This is the place,” muttered Ascilius to himself, interrupting Elerian’s thoughts.

  He cast a spell with his right hand, and Elerian saw a golden orb of light fly from his fingers, striking the illusion, which promptly vanished. When Elerian closed his third eye, he saw that they now stood on the brink of a dark pit of unknown depth that extended from one wall of the tunnel to the other and which continued on from where they stood for at least fifty feet. A bridge of polished stone began near their feet. No more than twelve inches wide, it arched gracefully across the pit.

  “Will that support our weight?” asked Elerian doubtfully, for there were no columns or supports of any kind beneath the narrow bridge.

  “The stone is hardened with magic,” said Ascilius reassuringly.

  Confidently, he set out across the narrow strip of stone, paying no attention to the gulf on either side. Elerian followed him, easily negotiating the narrow bridge. When they reached the far side, Ascilius cast another spell, and the slender bridge vanished.

  “I see you are no longer bothered by heights,” observed Elerian.

  “As long as I have solid stone beneath my feet, heights are of no consequence,” said Ascilius loftily as he led the way deeper into the tunnel.

  After they left the hidden pit behind, they passed a variety of other cunningly hidden obstacles: trap doors, slots where spears sprang out of the ceiling, and steel portcullises that dropped down to fence in intruders between them. Fortunately, Ascilius knew the counter spell to each hazard, and they passed by them unharmed.

  “Why are there so many traps?” Elerian asked at last.

  “I will show you,” said Ascilius, stopping before the left hand wall of the passageway. “Before I divulge the secret of this tunnel, however, you must swear that you will not reveal to anyone even if your own death is the price,” said Ascilius to Elerian in the gravest of voices.

  “That is a weighty promise to make without knowing what you will reveal,” said Elerian lightly, but Ascilius did not smile or lose his solemn demeanor.

  “You must swear,” he said, his dark eyes glittering as they reflected the rays of the mage light suspended over his head.

  Elerian hesitated, thinking over the request, for once he gave his word, he would not break it even to save his life. A premonition suddenly came to him then that whatever Ascilius planned to show him would play a part in his future although he could not tell if it was for good or for ill.

  “I swear to keep this place and its contents secret on pain of my death,” replied Elerian at last in a firm voice.

  Ascilius turned away at once with a satisfied look on his face. Raising his right hand, he spoke a secret word in his own language. At once, a great double door, outlined with a thin thread of silver, appeared in the wall before him.

  At the touch of Ascilius’s right hand, the two doors silently swung inward on hidden hinges, revealing a square doorway at least eight feet wide and seven feet high. The tiny mage light hovering above Ascilius’s head suddenly sped away to the center of the room beyond the doorway, brightening tenfold to reveal a great, domed chamber that was easily several hundred feet across and at least thirty feet high. Chests of metal and wood in various sizes, from small ones Elerian could have held in one hand to monstrous chests that would have required a dozen Dwarves to lift them, filled the room, stacked almost to the ceiling in places. They did not appear to have been opened for many years, for dust lay thick upon them.

  Ignoring Elerian for the moment, Ascilius hunted among the chests, stopping at last before a lesser chest that he could easily have lifted himself. A mark, which looked very like a crown, was burned into the dark oak of its lid. At Ascilius’s touch, the lock clicked open, and the Dwarf threw back the lid with a creak of hinges, long unused. He stepped back exposing the chest’s contents to Elerian’s eyes.

  The chest was filled with treasure. The greater part of it was composed of bright gold and silver coins, but scattered among them were precious gemstones: green emeralds, blue sapphires, red rubies, and white diamonds that reflected the mage light in their fiery depths.

  “If every chest in the room contains a treasure such as this,” thought Elerian to himself, “the wealth in this room would suffice to buy a whole kingdom.”

  “The city was abandoned in haste after the Goblins broke through the gates,” explained Ascilius when Elerian remained silent. “We took as much treasure as we could carry on our backs, but we did not have time to move all of it. What we could not carry was left here, and the door was sealed with a powerful spell. I am one of the few Dwarves left who know of this room and the secret passwords that open the door. Watching Elerian’s face closely with his dark eyes, Ascilius picked up a handful of golden coins in his right hand and let them run through his powerful fingers. They rang softly against each other with a seductive sound as they fell back into the chest.

  “Treasure such as this has been known to drive both men and Dwarves mad with desire,” said Ascilius quietly.

  “I cannot imagine why,” said Elerian indifferently, for riches had never held any great attraction for him. “Why would anyone need so much wealth?”

  Ascilius shook his head in disbelief at Elerian’s reaction to the treasure, but he seemed pleased about something just the same. From his pack, he retrieved two small pouches that he had made of soft leather, filling both of them with gold and silver coins as well as a gem or two. He tossed one of the pouches to Elerian, who caught it with a single, sure movement of his left hand.

  “I do not want this Ascilius,” protested Elerian. “What if the owner comes back some day to recover it?”

  “I do not think he will mind,” said Ascilius with a cryptic smile. He slipped his own pouch into his knapsack before rummaging in the chest again.

  “There may be a weapon or two in here that we can take with us,” he said as he delved deep into the treasure.

  Before long, Ascilius dredged up two double-edged daggers from the bottom of the chest, still in their dark, oiled leather sheaths. The handles were bright silver, untarnished by time and encrusted with gemstones. When Ascilius
pulled one of the daggers from its sheath, Elerian saw that its blade was formed of excellent steel, grayish blue in color with keen edges. Thin lines of a silver hue coiled and twisted in a complex pattern along the length of the blade. At the touch of Ascilius’s hand, the hilt and the lines graven on the blade shone with a bright white light.

  “Those are magical blades,” exclaimed Elerian at the sight of the shimmering silver lines.

  “How do you know they are magical?” asked Ascilius curiously.

  “The lines are surely argentum,” said Elerian excitedly. “I used such a weapon once, long ago. It saved my life.”

  “You are a curious fellow, Elerian, and full of surprises,” said Ascilius wonderingly. “Even many Dwarves have never seen or handled a weapon made with argentum.”

  He handed the second dagger to Elerian who eagerly drew it from its sheath and watched as the lines engraved in the blade glowed like newly minted silver. Ascilius then closed the chest. After putting the daggers in their packs, he and Elerian left the treasure room.

  “What will happen to all this wealth?” asked Elerian, watching closely as Ascilius sealed the doors once more. Try as he might, he could not discern a single line in the rock to show where the doors were located.

  “It will remain here until the owners or their descendents come to claim it once more,” said Ascilius. “Each chest is marked with the device of the family that owns it.”

  It was on the tip of Elerian’s tongue to ask Ascilius whether the chest he had opened belonged to him, but in the end, he decided against it. He had the feeling that there were still secrets about himself that Ascilius did not wish to reveal.

  “Still, I wonder why that chest marked with a crown?” he thought to himself as he followed Ascilius down the passageway that led away from the treasure room.

  Before long, they came to a blank wall. Elerian was not surprised to hear Ascilius say, “There is another door here, which will take us into the stables. There may be Goblins about so we must tread warily.”

  “Let us become invisible then,” said Elerian.

  He called his ring to his finger and extended its invisibility spell over the two of them. After they had both vanished from sight, Ascilius extinguished his mage light. He spoke a word of command, and the outline of a large door appeared in the wall before them. Ascilius pushed lightly on it with his right hand, opening it just enough so that he could slip through into the chamber beyond. Elerian followed silently behind him.

  THE STABLES

  “Are you through?” whispered Ascilius, for he never could tell where Elerian was when he became invisible.

  Ascilius started badly when Elerian whispered, “Yes,” in his left ear.

  Recovering his composure and muttering to himself about Elves and their peculiar sense of humor, Ascilius immediately closed and sealed the door he had just opened, concealing the tunnel that led to the treasure room. Meanwhile, Elerian looked curiously around him, for there was light to see by. He and Ascilius were on the edge of a vast, circular chamber with a ceiling about sixteen feet in height. Lines of thick, unadorned pillars of stone, placed at regular intervals to support the weight of the ceiling and hung with dim red mage lights, radiated out like the spokes of a wagon wheel from a thick central pillar, much wider than the rest, which stood in the center of the chamber.

  Between the rows of pillars, wide avenues ran from the outer wall of the chamber to the central pillar. The spaces on either side of these lanes were filled with stone stalls interspersed with open areas that contained many wagons. There was a warm smell of many beasts in the air, and Elerian saw that numerous stalls were occupied. The slim heads and necks of fiery-eyed atriors were visible over some stall doors, and over others, Elerian could see the massive, horned heads of the black oxen that drew the Goblins’ wagons. One of the oxen suddenly threw its head back, emitting a deep-throated roar that seemed more suited to a beast of prey. Immediately, the answering bellows of other oxen rent the air of the stables. Through the din, Elerian also heard barking and howling from the unseen depths of the chamber.

  “There are canigrae or lupins housed here,” he whispered to Ascilius when the noise had died down somewhat. “We must leave before they catch our scent.”

  “We will not be here long enough for them to discover us,” said Ascilius reassuringly.

  With his mage sight, Elerian saw Ascilius’s golden shade set out to his left, staying close to the outer wall of the stable. Hastily following the Dwarf in order to keep them both invisible, Elerian shadowed Ascilius as they walked down a wide avenue or street that seemed to circle the entire perimeter of the underground stable.

  The beasts they passed on their right seemed unusually restive. A great ox suddenly thrust its black head over the barrier door to its stall and turned its horned head in their direction. Its curving black horns gleamed in the rays of the mage lights, as did its fierce red eyes. When it threw back its head and roared, Elerian saw gleaming fangs in its jaws instead of the flat teeth of a peaceful grazer.

  The sound echoed and reechoed in the vast chamber. Other oxen began to rumble and shift nervously. The high pitched screams of atriors added to the tumult, and Elerian wondered uneasily how long it would be before someone came to investigate the cause of the animals’ agitation.

  “We are here,” said Ascilius suddenly in a relieved voice.

  Elerian saw that they now stood before a great, arched entranceway through which two large wagons could have driven side by side. Without hesitation Ascilius entered the tunnel, Elerian staying right on his heels. Soon, the dim ruddy glow of the mage lights behind them faded away, leaving them in the dark.

  Despite not being able to see, Ascilius’s steps slowed only a little. Placing his strong right hand against the cold, rough stone of the passageway, he let the wall and his memory guide him.

  Elerian had the advantage of Ascilius in the darkness. Opening his magical eye, he saw the world of shades open up before him. The golden mantle that his ring cast over himself and Ascilius cast a bright golden glow that illuminated the dead black walls and floor of the tunnel. Despite the lack of detail in the shadow world around him, Elerian negotiated his way with the ease of long practice.

  With each step they took, the din in the stables continued to recede until a thick silence surrounded them, broken only by the Ascilius’s firm footsteps. Elerian’s soft shod feet made no sound at all.

  Elerian found the close if breathable air in the tunnel they were following oppressive, and there was now an acrid scent of rock dust in the air that brought back unpleasant memories of the Goblins’ mines.

  “Why would anyone choose to live in such an unpleasant place when the free air of the forest waits above?” wondered Elerian to himself.

  At that moment, a small mage light appeared above Ascilius’s golden head. Elerian ended his invisibility spell and closed his third eye, seeing the world with his normal vision again.

  Now that he had light to see by, Ascilius increased his pace to a fast walk. The passageway they followed ran in a fairly straight line, angling deeper into the earth with every foot they covered. The floor was uniformly level, every imperfection smoothed out, but the walls and arched ceiling were uneven and showed the marks of chisels. The arched entrances to side tunnels began to appear in both walls of the passageway. Ascilius abruptly entered one that seemed in no way different to Elerian from the dozens of others that they had passed.

  The tunnel was a crude affair compared to the main passageway, with jagged walls and low ceilings. It branched over and over again so that they seemed to be traversing a great maze beneath the ground. While Elerian kept a general sense of their direction, he knew that he could never have retraced their route on his own. He marveled at Ascilius’s sense of direction and his memory, for his step never faltered, and he always seemed to know which turn to take as he threaded his way through the tangle of tunnels.

  The deeper they penetrated into the earth, the more at his eas
e Ascilius seemed to be. He often stopped now to point out some precious gem or vein of precious metal embedded in the walls of the tunnels to Elerian, as if they were on some casual walking tour instead of fleeing for their lives from the Goblins.

  At first, Elerian bore the repeated interruptions to their journey in silence, but when Ascilius stopped for the hundredth time to exclaim, “Look at this emerald, Elerian. It is the size of my thumb,” he was unable to restrain himself any longer.

  “You come from a most peculiar race, Ascilius,” he said dryly, “to take such pleasure in these dark, stuffy, tunnels so deep beneath the earth. I would trade every gem down here for a sight of the sky and a breath of wind on my face.”

  Ascilius looked up in surprise at his comment and then looked around him as if seeing the dark tunnel for the first time.

  “I forgot that you see things as they are now,” he said sadly. “I see these tunnels through the eyes of memory. Before the Goblins came there were lights here and many Dwarves working happily side by side. Wagons drawn by ponies rumbled up and down the main tunnels with their loads of ore, and the air was filled with the voices of the miners and the glad shouts of those who had found some particularly fine gem or rich vein of metal.”

  “You could put a thousand Dwarves down here, each with a torch in one hand and a harp in the other, and I still would not like it one bit,” said Elerian in an exasperated voice, “but I will not complain again as long as you stop lecturing me about these narrow tunnels.”

  “That I cannot promise,” said Ascilius cheerfully. “Remember, in the hall of the master, the apprentice does not choose the lesson. I feel the same joy in observing a fine gem as you do in studying some great and ancient tree.”

  “In that case, I will lecture you night and day the next time we chance to pass through a forest,” threatened Elerian.