The Hidden Realm: Book 04 - Ennodius

by A. Giannetti

  “In the meantime, I will try again,” Anthea thought determinedly to herself. Lying down on her bed, she grasped her silver pendant and opened her third eye. With all her heart, she tried again to will her shade to follow the golden thread that led away from her ring.

  In far off Ennodius, Elerian finally tired and slept for a short time. He woke refreshed and alert when he heard Ascilius stirring about preparing breakfast.

  “We will try to reach the third level of the city today,” said Ascilius when Elerian joined him. “There are small ramps in the city which lead from one level to another. We will try them first, rather than attempt the main ramp, which is large enough to admit Eboria.”

  After they had eaten and packed their gear, the two companions left the shop through the back door. Turning left, Ascilius led Elerian about a quarter of a mile down the dark service tunnel, his mage light illuminating their way. When he came to a doorless opening on his right, Ascilius entered it at once. After Elerian followed him, he saw by the faint illumination of Ascilius’s mage light that they had entered a tunnel, not a room. The passageway before them was about twelve feet wide and ten feet high, large enough to admit a Dwarf wagon, but far too small for Eboria to enter. The arched ceiling, walls, and floor were smooth but not polished. Iron brackets were fastened to the ceiling, but the mage lights they must have contained at one time were all dark.

  As Elerian followed Ascilius into the passageway, he noted that the floor of the tunnel rose gradually as it curved to the left in a gradual spiral. Elerian guessed that they had traveled almost a quarter mile when they suddenly came to two massive steel doors. Ascilius tugged on the door handle of the right hand door, but it did not stir the least bit. In a deep voice, he cast an opening spell. The doors groaned softly, but they still did not open.

  “Why did they lock the doors?” asked Ascilius aloud in a puzzled voice. “This ramp is much too small for Eboria to travel through,” he said half to himself as he tugged at his beard in frustration with his right hand.

  “Perhaps they were trying to keep out the creature that left the claw marks on the doors,” suggested Elerian.

  “They were trying to keep something out,” agreed Ascilius, “but I cannot imagine what it was. It would take a ram to open those doors now that they are sealed.”

  “Well we have not got a ram,” said Elerian. “What do we do now?”

  “Try another ramp, of course,” said Ascilius in an irritated voice as he turned away from the door and stomped away back down the passageway. Behind him, Elerian sighed and followed his irritable companion. They tried two more ramps after that, finding each of them locked in the same way.

  “I am guessing that all of the smaller ramps are sealed off, so it appears that we must try the main ramp after all,” Ascilius said reluctantly as they left the third blocked passageway. “It will be a risky business with the dragon prowling about, for the main ramp has no doors on this level. Only the exits on the other levels have doors, and they may be locked. If I cannot get someone to open them for us, we will have no way to escape if Eboria unexpectedly comes up behind us.”

  “If that is the only way left open to us, then we must try it,” replied Elerian, although he did not relish the prospect of becoming trapped between Eboria and cold steel. “Do dragons prefer the taste of Dwarves or Elves?” he asked Ascilius as they walked toward the center of the city, traveling down one of the smaller service tunnels that ran between the main avenues of the Dwarf city.

  “Dwarves I suppose,” said Ascilius absently. “We are far superior to Elves in every other quality, so we probably taste better too,” he said loftily. “Why do you ask?” he said, suddenly suspicious.

  “Well, I was thinking that if we encounter Eboria I might have a chance to escape if she eats you first,” replied Elerian. His voice was entirely serious, but his eyes, which he carefully concealed from Ascilius, sparkled with mischief in the rays of the dim mage light which shone above Ascilius’s head.

  “Never fear, she will eat you too if she traps us in the ramp,” Ascilius assured him gloomily. He fell silent, refusing to be drawn into a battle of wits with Elerian, walking away with steps that seemed unnaturally loud in the deep silence that surrounded them.

  “I think that I will die of boredom long before I meet Eboria,” thought Elerian dryly to himself, his own light footsteps making no sound on the stony floor of the passageway as he followed his unresponsive companion. “Ascilius is a stout fellow, but his moods have begun to wear on me at times. Has he changed or have I?” Elerian wondered to himself.

  An image of Anthea suddenly appeared in his mind, blue eyes alight with mischief. “Therein lies my answer,” thought Elerian wryly to himself. “I am no longer the same carefree Elerian who entered Tarsius in the company of Ascilius and Dacien. I have fallen under Anthea’s spell, my heart bound to hers with chains stronger than steel. “What would I not dare to have her?” he wondered to himself, thinking of Merula, likewise a captive of Anthea’s beauty.

  Elerian finally turned his mind away from the contemplation of the pitfalls presented by true love to concentrate on his surroundings. Ascilius’s mage light revealed smooth walls on both sides unrelieved by any doors or other features, for they were following one of the straight tunnels that led directly to the main ramp in the center of the city. Iron brackets were suspended overhead from the ceiling at regular intervals, but their lights were all dark.

  Elerian quickly found the journey through the tunnel wearisome except for the times they came to an intersection. These occurred at regular intervals as the tunnel the two companions were following crossed other service tunnels and main highways at alternating intervals. Ascilius took little note of the smaller intersections, but whenever they came to one of the main Dwarf boulevards, he stopped, looking carefully in both directions to make sure that nothing had set an ambush for him and Elerian. Eventually, nerves on edge, he and Elerian would dash across the dangerous crossroads, never knowing if something was preparing to spring out at them from one of the empty shops that lined the boulevard on either side of the intersection.

  Suddenly, Ascilius stopped short. Elerian realized that they had come to the end of the tunnel, for the Dwarf’s mage light now illuminated a part of a great chamber that had opened up before them. Looking over Ascilius’s right shoulder, Elerian saw that the portion of the floor revealed by the mage light was filled with the wreckage of small wagons, their contents spilled on the floor. As in the workrooms, there were weapons and some armor scattered about but no sign of any Dwarves, living or dead.

  The two companions waited for an endless time in the entryway, listening for any sound of the dragon, but not the least noise came to their ears. Elerian swept the inky blackness that lay beyond the pool of light cast by the mage light with his magical third eye, but there was no telltale glow such as would come from the shade of any living creature. As far as he could determine, the great hall was empty.

  “I think it is safe to continue,” whispered Ascilius.

  The Dwarf let his mage light flare up for a moment. Elerian now saw they were standing at the edge of an enormous, round hall whose ceiling was at least thirty feet high. In the curving wall of the chamber, Elerian could see dark openings at regular intervals, some large and some small. These were the streets that led out into the Dwarf city, like the spokes of a great wheel. In the center of the hall was an enormous pillar of polished stone, which rose all the way to the ceiling, partially blocking their view of the other half of the chamber. Elerian was reminded at once of a similar that pillar he had seen in the stables below Calenus.

  Ascilius let his light die down to a minute spark again before leading the way to the pillar in the center of the chamber. He and Elerian slowly threaded their way through the wreckage on the floor, being careful not to make the slightest noise. Both of them kept a nervous watch on the dark reaches around them, for they both had the uncomfortable feeling that Eboria might suddenly spring out at them f
rom the cover of one of the larger tunnels that pierced the outer wall of the chamber.

  The ramp itself has only one entrance,” whispered Ascilius to Elerian over his right shoulder. “It is farther to the right.”

  As they rounded the shoulder of the great column, Ascilius suddenly groaned, a terrible wrenching sound that tore at Elerian’s heart. The Dwarf dropped his ax, which clattered loudly on the floor at his feet. Sinking to his knees, he pulled at his beard with both hands, as if he would tug it out by the roots.

  “So many,” he said in a heartbroken voice.

  Beyond the kneeling Dwarf, Elerian saw that a portion of the floor had been cleared of debris, but it was not empty. Bones of all sizes gleamed whitely in the rays of Ascilius’s mage light. Skulls with empty staring eyes, rib cages, leg bones shattered for their marrow, they lay in heaps that were waist high on Elerian. There was no doubt in his mind that he and Ascilius had found the missing residents of Ennodius, for the short, thick boned skeletons could only have belonged to Dwarves of all ages and sizes.

  “I should have never left the city,” moaned Ascilius, covering his face with his powerful hands. “Their empty eyes accuse me, telling me that this is my fault.”

  “I must distract him,” thought Elerian to himself. “In a moment, his grief will change to rage, and there will be no reasoning with him. He will rush off to do battle with the dragon, throwing his life away for no good reason.”

  Laying his left hand on the Dwarf’s shoulder, Elerian said gently, “I have also lost those that I loved, Ascilius, but I have learned that you cannot help the dead or change their fate. Think rather of those who might still be alive in the city and in need of your help.”

  “We will find nothing but bones, no matter how long we search,” said Ascilius bleakly, sunk in the depths of his grief and despair.

  “You cannot know that until we look,” said Elerian reasonably. “Let us leave this place. We are not safe here.”

  “Go yourself, then,” said Ascilius, angrily twisting his shoulder out of Elerian’s grip. “I will wait here alone for Eboria.”

  “You will come with me even if I have to lay an immobility spell on your cantankerous carcass and drag you by the heels,” said Elerian, now grown angry himself.

  Ascilius glared at Elerian, red sparks floating in the back of his dark eyes, ready to flame up into a towering rage. Gray eyes cold as a winter wind, Elerian glared back. His illusion spell had fallen away of its own accord, and he was fully revealed, perilously fair with a faint shimmer about him that spoke of hidden power.

  Finally, Ascilius took a deep breath. His eyes turned completely dark once more.

  “He has played the fool so often that, that I had forgotten how dangerous he is,” thought Ascilius to himself. “He has the right of it, too. I must continue my search.”

  Picking up his ax with his right hand, Ascilius used the haft as a staff, pushing himself up to stand on his feet again.

  “Let us go then,” he said gruffly.

  Keeping his eyes straight ahead to avoid looking at the bones on his right, Ascilius walked passed through a doorless entryway about thirty feet wide and twenty feet high in the side of the ramp column. Breathing a sigh of relief, Elerian followed after Ascilius, entering a large passageway whose floor inclined gently upwards, running straight ahead through many feet of solid rock. At the end of the tunnel was an exit that led to a second large passageway that ran at right angles to the first. The floor in front of the exit was level, forming a sort of landing, but when Ascilius and Elerian turned right and began walking, the stone floor beneath their feet began to incline gently upward at a barely noticeable angle, ascending to their left in spiral fashion.

  The floors, walls, and arched celing of the ramp were all polished, reflecting the dim golden rays of Ascilius’s mage light with a strange, crystalline gleam that led Elerian to think that they might have been magically hardened. Ornate iron brackets intended to hold mage lights hung from the ceiling, but they were all darkened now.

  “I wonder what carried the bodies of the Dwarves into the first hall?” wondered Elerian to himself as he followed after Ascilius with a light, silent step.

  Although Ascilius had been quick to blame Eboria, there was a flaw in that assumption. Some of the slain Dwarves had almost certainly came from rooms not accessible to the dragon. It seemed more reasonable to Elerian to assume that the creature that had left the claw marks on the doors to the shops had also carried the bodies of its victims to the ramp hall.

  “What sort of creature would use a chamber that is accessible to a dragon for a banquet hall?” wondered Elerian grimly to himself. “It must either be an ally of Eboria or so dangerous in its own right that even the dragon fears and avoids it,” concluded Elerian.

  By the time the two companions came to a second entranceway on their right, Elerian guessed that they had ascended through hundreds of feet of solid stone. As before, the floor of the ramp leveled out in front of the the exit, forming a level landing. Cautiously, with the Dwarf’s mage light dispelling the darkness before them, Ascilius and Elerian left the ramp, walking down a large passageway whose floor inclined downward at a slight angle. Before long, the two companions reached an arched doorway.

  Ascilius had feared to find the doors to the ramp locked, but the two great steel doors before them hung open, suspended from massive hinges supported by enormous steel pins driven into the living rock on either side of the doorway. The door on the right appeared untouched to Elerian, but the top hinge of the door on his left was torn in two so that the door leaned outward at a steep angle, supported only by its twisted bottom hinge. The destruction of the door was a frightening display of the immense strength residing in Eboria’s gleaming body, for Elerian was certain the dragon had ripped it from its hinge.

  “Something is very wrong,” Ascilius whispered in a worried voice as he stared with dismay at the open doors. “These doors should have been closed and locked long before Eboria reached them.”

  Passing warily through the doorway, the two companions found themselves in another chamber similar to the one on the level below them. There was debris on the floor, but fortunately for Ascilius’s piece of mind, there were no bones.

  As he followed Ascilius toward the nearest of the service tunnel entrances that pierced the wall of the hall, Elerian saw that this chamber was more ornate than the one on the second level. The pillars supporting the ceiling were carved into the shape of great trees, their mighty, twisting limbs stretching across the roof overhead. Stone leaves and small branches, carved in wondrous detail, grew from those limbs thirty feet above their heads, but here and there, Elerian saw gaps in the foliage, as if portions of the ceiling had been torn down.

  “Enchanted stone birds with jeweled eyes sat on those limbs, filling the chamber with their sweet song,” said Ascilius who had seen Elerian staring up at the ceiling. “Eboria must have torn them all down to loot their gems,” he said angrily as he led Elerian through the entrance to the service tunnel that he had selected.

  They passed through many feet of featureless, solid stone before they came to their first crossroads where the smaller tunnel crossed the first of the large boulevards that completely circled this level of the city in concentric rings. The floor, walls, and arched ceiling of the intersection were all highly polished stone, gleaming softly in the reflected rays of Ascilius’s mage light. Large iron brackets holding glass globes hung from the ceiling above the junction, but none of the mage lights that had burned in the spheres was lit.

  “Eboria must prefer the dark,” thought Elerian to himself as he waited beside Ascilius in the doorway, both of them listening intently. “It hampers her prey but presents no barrier to her third eye.”

  No sound came from the inky darkness that rose up like a wall at the distant edge of the pool of light cast by Ascilius’s faint light. A deep, tomblike silence filled the air.

  “Let us cross quickly whispered Ascilius,” stepping into t
he intersection. As Elerian followed him, his third eye opened of its own accord, as it often did in the presence of magic. On his left, in the middle of the boulevard, Elerian saw the shimmering red mantle of an illusion spell. Beneath the veil of the illusion, Elerian saw the dim outlines of a huge red shade creeping stealthily in their direction.

  EBORIA’S SECRET

  Stopping abruptly, Elerian raised his left hand, casting a parting spell at the slender, shimmering red thread of power that tethered the illusion to the creature’s right paw, neatly severing it in two. Immediately, the illusion vanished, revealing a small dragon perhaps twenty feet long that had been hiding in the passageway on their left disguised as a part of the street. The dragon's scales glittered red gold in the dim rays of Ascilius’s mage light. Its large eyes glowed like green lamps.

  “Enemy to your left,” shouted Elerian to Ascilius as the dragon pounced. The two companions leaped in opposite directions, Elerian to the left and Ascilius to the right, both of them barely evading the long, hooked claws of the dragon.

  Roaring in annoyance at missing its strike, the dragon darted its long, horned head at Elerian, its scaled, supple neck resembling a large serpent. Elerian twisted to his upper body to his right to avoid the creature’s gaping jaws, which shot past his left shoulder.

  While the dragon’s attention was on Elerian, Ascilius leaped forward, striking it squarely on the knee joint of its left hind leg with his ax. His ax blade rang sharply, as if it had struck steel. The force of the blow numbed Ascilius’s powerful hands, causing his ax handle to slip out of his grasp when the ax head skittered off to his left, grating across the small, glittering scales that covered the dragon’s leg.

  In response to Ascilius’s blow, the dragon whipped its head toward the Dwarf and darted the end of its sinuous tail forward. The razor sharp, triangular tip missed the right side of Ascilius’s chest by a whisker as he threw himself backwards. Elerian drew his sword, the slight rasp of steel on leather drawing the dragon’s attention back to him. Raising his sword high with both long hands wrapped around its hilt, he struck a mighty two handed stroke on the creature’s scaled head, between its up curving horns, when it turned its head to snap at him again. The tempered Dwarf forged steel of his sword made a ringing sound, as if it had struck iron, before breaking off near the hilt. Elerian felt the shock of the blow into his shoulders. His sword hilt clattered to the stone floor beneath his feet after slipping out of his numbed hands.