The Hidden Realm: Book 04 - Ennodius

by A. Giannetti

  Elerian had been a fish before, so the cool water of the river flowing over his body and through his gills did not alarm him. He gave Ascilius and Enias a moment to adjust to their new shapes before leading them across the river. Nosing along the rocky shore, Elerian discovered an overhang cut by the current beneath the far bank. When he dove into the underwater cave, his two companions followed him into the dark water under the bank. Using their unfamiliar fins and tails to hold themselves steady against the current, Ascilius and Enias they took up a position on either side of Elerian. To the great eyes of all three, the dark water in front of them appeared clear as glass in the starlight, allowing them to see the sky and the far bank of the river.

  By now, Eboria had regained her night sight. Her huge, bat like shape cast a dark, moving shadow across the river as she patrolled the skies above the place where she had last seen three golden shades standing in the shallow river. Eventually, flattening the branches and trees in her way, she landed on the far shore, directly across from the hiding place Elerian had selected. He moved deeper under the cut bank until his tail fin brushed the stony bank of the river, Ascilius and Enias crowding close beside him in the underwater cave.

  On the far side of the river, Eboria snuffed the air with flared nostrils that showed a sultry orange glow in their depths. Her third eye was open, but she saw no sign of the three shades she had detected earlier. She leaned her great horned head over the bank. The river resembled a flow of molten silver when seen with her mage sight. In its depths, she saw the golden flash and spark of the small creatures that lived in its depths, but there was no sign of the larger shades that she sought. Twisting her long, sinuous neck, she looked upstream and down, but she did not see the shades of the three large green gold fish holding together deep in the darkness under the bank on the far side of the river. Closing her third eye, Eboria looked at the river again with her everyday sight, but even though her night vision was excellent, there was nothing to be seen in the glass clear water flowing past her.

  “They were here,” thought Eboria to herself as she distastefully reached out her great, clawed foot right paw, retrieving the gear left behind by Elerian and Ascilius. When everything was heaped up on the bank next to her feet, red flames suddenly spouted from Eboria’s mouth, incinerating the pack and turning the steel into twisted, blackened fragments of metal.

  She then searched up and down the bank, forcing her way through the trees with a great cracking and snapping of limbs that left a tangle of wreckage in her wake. Her frustration grew by the moment. Returning once more to the place near the riverbank where she had last seen the shades of her prey, she stared intently at the bank on the far side of the river.

  “Where have they gone?” she wondered angrily to herself. “At least one of them is a mage. Has he somehow used his magic to conceal himself and his companions? They have not swum away, for I would have seen their shades from above before I landed on the bank.”

  Finning against the current in his underwater cave, Elerian thought furiously of what he might do to drive off the dragon before she discovered their hiding place. Like an echo in his mind came the voice of Tullius, his old mentor.

  “There are three elements which can be controlled by a mage, Elerian, for they have their own magical energy. They are fire, water, and wind.”

  Elerian had never tried to control water, but he thought at once of his ever-useful transformation spell. Improvising feverishly on his charm, he opened his third eye, looking out at a river that now resembled a great, shining flow of molten silver. Apprehensively, he cast his altered spell, wondering if it would work at all. With his mage sight, he saw a small golden orb fly from his toothy jaws, expanding to encompass a large expanse of water in front of him. Within that golden sphere, which remained tethered to his body by a slender golden thread, Elerian saw silver liquid flow into a fixed shape.

  In front of Eboria, the river suddenly began to boil. A transparent form closely resembling a large dragon suddenly erupted out of the water, glistening wetly. Streams of silver light, visible only to Eboria’s third eye, flowed into the water elemental from the river as it drew on the power of the river to animate itself.

  Startled by the apparition, Eboria roared in anger and drew her head back before spouting a plume of red mage fire from her mouth. In response, the elemental spread its own watery jaws and met her fire with a stream of clear river water. A great hissing sound filled the air, and a huge cloud of steam rose up like a cloud as fire battled water. Abruptly, Eboria broke off her attack.

  “I cannot burn off all the water in the river,” she thought angrily to herself as she dipped her head down to the right to avoid the endless stream of water gushing from the elemental’s jaws. Springing lightly into the air, Eboria rapidly beat her powerful wings to gain altitude, casing a storm of wind to buffet the trees below her.

  Like every creature, she drank water, but she avoided it otherwise, for it was inimical to the fires that she carried inside of her. As she hovered over the victorious elemental, which had ceased spouting water, the creature turned its gleaming head to follow her movements with clear, shining eyes.

  Eboria did not like being bested, but she had learned to be patient over the long years of her life. Heavy and sluggish from all the flesh she had consumed, she felt disinclined to exert herself any further. There was also a new treasure to be added to her hoard, for Ascilius’s winnings were firmly grasped in her left hind paw.

  “Let them have their little victory,” she thought to herself. “The three I seek will have to leave the water eventually. When they do, I will be waiting. Once I have slept off my meal, I will patrol the skies to the south with ceaseless vigilance.”

  Secure in her fearsomeness, Eboria expected her prey to flee away from her like any sensible creature would. It never occurred to her that Elerian and Ascilius might be traveling toward Ennodius.

  “They will not escape me a second time,” she thought to herself with a last look at the river below.

  After effortlessly flapping her leathery pinions to gain altitude, Eboria suddenly sped off the northwest, toward Ennodius, supremely confident that she would eventually find the prey that had escaped her.

  Beneath the cut under the riverbank, Elerian was so entranced with the elemental that he had created that he hardly noticed that Eboria was gone. A bump on his left shoulder from Ascilius brought him back to himself. Reluctantly, he let the water dragon slip back into the river.

  Once he saw that the skies were clear, Elerian led Ascilius and Enias out from under the riverbank and back into the shallow water on the far side of the river. Opening his toothy jaws, he watched with his third eye as a flow of golden light spilled from his mouth, enveloping him and his two companions in a golden film. Beneath that shining cloak, their fishy bodies began to change; flowing into new shapes. Soon, all three of them were standing in the shallows in their native forms. Elerian and Ascilius were clothed, for the spell had brought back their garments, but they were soaking wet. Ascilius looked especially unhappy as clear river water ran out of his hair and beard in streams, further soaking his clothes. Enias snorted and shook his head, spraying water in all directions as he shook his mane dry.

  “Of all the places I would have chosen to hide, the river would have been the last,” said Ascilius grumpily as he raised his hands to shield himself from the spray of water thrown out by the stallion.

  “We escaped the dragon. Surely that is worth a little soaking,” Elerian pointed out.

  “That is true,” said Ascilius, brightening a bit, for really, he was quite amazed to find himself alive and in one piece after their encounter with Eboria. “I apologize for underestimating your powers,” he said sincerely to Elerian as he waded toward shore. “Raising that water elemental was a clever way to drive off Eboria.”

  “It was nothing,” said Elerian modestly. “Since she was no longer hungry, she was probably more than willing to play with us a bit longer. She also had our gold and
silver to add to her hoard. I think she suspected we were in the river, however. She spent a quite a bit of time staring at the water.”

  “She is sure to come back,” said Ascilius as he waded onto shore. “You took her by surprise tonight with your mage light and your elemental, but the next time we meet, she will be better prepared to counter any magic you might use against her. We must travel north as far as we can while she is resting. Hopefully, we will find a good place to hide before she returns.”

  Elerian waded after Ascilius, promptly collapsing against a willow trunk when he reached dry ground. He suddenly felt terribly weak, and his shoulder ached horribly where Malevolus had thrust in the septilire.

  “You overspent your power again,” said Ascilius at once in a concerned voice.

  “I just need to rest a bit,” said Elerian. “Enias will carry me when we are ready to travel.”

  “We will not get far without food or weapons,” said Ascilius, his mood souring again as he examined the remains of their gear. “Even our leather armor is gone.”

  “Those could have been our ashes instead of those of our gear,” Elerian pointed out dryly.

  He remained sitting against the tree until his strength returned. When he finally rose to his feet, Enias knelt in front of him, making it easier for Elerian to climb onto his back. When Enias stood up, Elerian found that he had barely enough strength to maintain his seat. Ascilius reluctantly climbed up behind him to hold him steady.

  “It is a strenuous business being a mage,” said Elerian ruefully to the Dwarf.

  “Indeed it is,” replied Ascilius. “Magic exacts a heavy price and is best used sparingly.”

  “If you had a master ring it would not matter,” whispered a voice in Elerian's head, causing him to start.

  Once again, he could not tell if it was his own thought or someone else whispering inside his mind. He shook his head to clear it.

  “Perhaps it is only my weariness that is affecting me,” he thought to himself as he guided Enias back into the river. Staying in the shallows by the bank, they continued north under cover of the trees which shaded the river. The swift flowing water carried away their scent trail, affording them some protection from any pursuers, whether dragon or Goblin, who might come looking for them.

  “If the Goblins did escape from Eboria the other night and come looking for us, they may get a nasty surprise if she comes across them first,” thought Elerian to himself.

  After about three miles by Elerian’s reckoning, the river began to angle to the north west, entering a deep gorge that ran through the rugged foothills that were now directly ahead of them. Inside the gorge, the riverbanks disappeared, merging into the steep rock walls on either side of the river. Forced up onto the right hand shore, Enias sure footedly climbed the steep slope in front of him, making light of his double burden. Once the stallion reached the summit, Elerian guided him to the edge of the wood growing along the margin of the gorge.

  They were facing east now. In front of them were the open plains of Tarsius, the sun just breaking above the horizon in a blaze of orange and red. On their left were rugged foothills covered with oaks, ash, and chestnuts.

  Electing to go on rather than rest, they traveled north, skirting the edge of the wood but staying under cover of the trees. There was a well-developed canopy here, for this was an old forest. Many of the trees rose over a hundred feet into the air and were thicker than a man was tall.

  To the right of Ascilius and Elerian, out on the open plain, the old Dwarf road, which led from Ennodius to Silanus, appeared again, cutting a straight line north and south through the knee-high grass of the plains.

  The wood the two companions were traveling through crept closer and closer to the road, finally swallowing it up after less than a mile. At the point where the road first entered the forest, Ascilius dismounted. Before him, a tall granite pillar had been erected on each side of the highway, each pillar topped with a stone carving of a bearded Dwarf holding a lantern in his left hand and the right hand lifted in greeting, palm outward. Thick clematis vines wound around the pillars, spreading vivid, hand sized blooms of purple and blue. Between the pillars, the road, about twenty feet wide and paved with wide flat stones carefully fitted together, led northwest into the hills, the tall oak and ash trees growing on either side of it forming a thick green roof over it with their branches.

  “If we follow this road, staying out of sight under the trees, we will come to a place where we can rest in safety for the night,” said Ascilius to Elerian. “Tomorrow, screened by thick forests which will conceal us from Eboria, we can continue to follow it north through foothills. Thirty miles will bring us to the gates of Ennodius.”

  “Let us go on then,” said Elerian. “The sooner we reach this shelter, the sooner we can rest.”

  As Ascilius led the way onto the road, he spoke again, a distant look in his dark eyes as if he was reminiscing.

  “Years ago this road would have been full of wagons either traveling out to the plains or returning,” he said quietly to Elerian. “The lanterns on the pillars were always lit and were visible far out on the plains to welcome back returning Dwarves. Those were happier times,” he sighed.

  “If someone had time enough to extinguish the lanterns in order to hide the entrance to the road, it is a good sign that someone is still alive,” said Elerian, seeking to cheer up his companion.

  “We will see,” replied Ascilius, his voice still glum.

  Abandoning Ascilius to his melancholy mood, Elerian looked around him with interest as Enias followed Ascilius down the roadway. He felt as though they had entered a cool green tunnel, for the trees growing on both sides of the road formed a thick roof overhead with their leaves and branches. Overhead, liquid birdcalls rang through the cool green tinted air. A soft breeze, so different from the insistent wind of the plains, blew gently through the wood, rustling the leaves overhead. A short distance to his left, down in the gorge they had left behind, Elerian could hear the Catalus murmur and splash in its bed, for the river increased its flow as it ran through its narrow channel through the hills. At times, as they skirted the face of some steep hill, he was able to look down to the bottom of the gorge where the river raced through the stony channel it had cut through the hills. Elerian saw many shallow falls there where the green water foamed white as it splashed down on slick black rocks.

  Having regained some of his strength, Elerian slid off Enias, walking beside Ascilius on foot. The stallion followed along behind him, occasionally resting his head companionably on Elerian’s right shoulder.

  Gradually, Ascilius threw off his dark mood. He began to walk with a firmer step, muttering softly to himself.

  “Most remarkable,” Elerian heard him say several times. “I never expected that we would get this far.”

  Suddenly, the Dwarf stopped walking, turning toward Elerian who was also forced to stop.

  “I said nothing before because I was out of sorts, but I want to thank you now for saving my life again, Elerian,” said Ascilius awkwardly, his dark eyes and craggy features displaying a mixture of earnestness and sincerity. “There are not many in the Middle Realm who would have braved the dragon to rescue me.”

  “I must have someone to play tricks on,” said Elerian lightly, but his gray eyes were filled with affection for his staunch if sometimes irritable companion.

  Ascilius sighed and shook his head. “Someday, you will forget yourself and actually behave seriously for a moment or two,” he said as he turned around once more and resumed walking.

  “Seriousness is a quality more suited to the very old and, of course, Dwarves,” said Elerian cheerfully. “What an unexciting world it would be if we all went around with sober faces all day long. I am sure that a Dwarf city must be a very dull place, overflowing with enough gravity and solemnity to put one instantly to sleep.”

  “Dwarves are not dull,” replied Ascilius haughtily without turning around. “We are a purposeful folk not given to idle, p
ointless pranks like some that I could name.”

  “My pranks are never pointless,” replied Elerian. “They are designed to entertain me and to add a little spice to your life.”

  Ascilius, stomping a little more heavily on the ground with his sturdy boots than he needed to, muttered, “I give up! You are an entirely hopeless case.”

  Elerian smiled to himself. Indulging in his favorite activity of tormenting Ascilius had put him in a lighthearted mood.

  “Perhaps the worst is over,” he thought to himself as he walked quietly beside Ascilius. “The Goblins seem to be gone, and we are now undercover and quite close to Ennodius. A few more weeks may find me riding back to Tarsius carrying enough treasure to wed Anthea,” he thought hopefully to himself.

  THE WAYFARER’S INN

  By early evening, after maintaining a steady pace all day, Elerian and Ascilius had covered a distance of about fifteen miles. His blunt features betraying his eagerness, Ascilius now began looking ahead of him at the right side of the road, a look of expectation on his face. Suddenly, not more than a hundred feet ahead of them on their right, Elerian saw the entrance to a second road, its entrance also marked by pillars topped by lantern bearing Dwarves. About twenty feet wide, the tributary road climbed up into the hills in a northeasterly direction.

  “These lanterns have also been extinguished,” thought Elerian to himself as he followed Ascilius between the pillars.

  Walking side by side on the wide flagstones that formed the surface of the branch road, the two companions followed it into the hills. The road wound between enormous oak and ash trees that grew almost up to the culverts that ran on both sides of it. Elerian was beginning to wonder where the road was taking them in this dense wood when, unexpectedly, a wide courtyard covered with gray flagstones appeared through the trees. Huge oak trees grew at intervals inside of it, standing in round plots covered with thick green turf. The trees were a good distance from each other, but their branches were so long that they met overhead, forming a vast green canopy that made the courtyard seem a part of the forest around it. Elerian doubted that any part of it was visible from the air.