The Foundling (The Hidden Realm)

by A. Giannetti

  Guided by Julian’s mage lamp, they set off for the hilltops, Balbus leading the way. Tullius wanted to return to his own home, but Balbus would not hear of it. “It is not safe for you to return home in the dark with those creatures wandering about. Stay with me for the night,” he insisted.

  The crusty mage did not argue for once, and guided by his staff, Balbus soon led everyone to Julian’s farm. After Julian and his wife, who had recovered by now from the fright Elerian had given her, expressed their gratitude for all they had done, Balbus and Tullius bid them goodnight and set out for Balbus’s own farm. There, they had a large, late supper before a crackling fire before retiring for the night.

  In the morning, Tullius and Balbus led a large company of men with their dogs in an attempt to track down the Goblins, but they were unsuccessful in finding them. Despite a thorough search of the area where they had disappeared, there was no sign of them.

  “Perhaps they died of their wounds or fled back to their own country,” said Balbus at last to Tullius when it grew dark, and the search was at last called off.

  THE HUNT FOR DRUSUS

  After stepping through the portal, Sarius found himself in the throne room of the Goblin king. It was large and circular in shape, but there were no windows, for Torquatus, like every other Goblin, hated the warm yellow light of the sun. The black basalt walls, floor, and domed ceiling were all polished to a mirror like finish through the long labor of captive Dwarves. At regular intervals along the walls, gleaming stone pillars reached toward the arched ceiling. Each pillar was topped by the crouching figure of a troll, a lupin, or a lentulus. The nightmarish stone heads of the figures were hollow, and a clear glass ball containing a red mage light burned inside each one so that a lurid red light shone through their vacant eyes and open mouths. Whether through some trick of the mage lights or some enchantment placed on the figures themselves, the eyes seemed to move, while the mouths gaped and leered.

  Between each set of pillars were stone panels, deeply carved with fantastic creatures and scenes. The polished black stone gleamed like oil where the scarlet mage lights illuminated the figures of lupins and lentulae rending Elves, Dwarves, and Men with tooth and claw. Goblins mounted on fierce atriors pursued human game in the Dark Hunt while other panels depicted battles in which the Goblins overran all their enemies.

  Sarius ignored the violent and fantastical furnishings of the room, for he had seen them many times before. All his attention was focused on the raised platform in the center of the room. It was reached by three low steps in the front, and in its center stood a curiously carved black basalt throne, the only furniture in the room. Sitting on the throne was a slender Goblin, very like Sarius in appearance save for the black crown he wore on his head. Faceted rubies, evenly spaced around the circumference of the crown, gleamed like red coals when they reflected the mage lights.

  “What news Sarius?” asked Torquatus, eagerly leaning forward on the throne as Sarius knelt before him on his right knee.

  “The Elf home is destroyed along with its inhabitants, my Lord,” said Sarius, rising to his feet, “but we encountered a complication.”

  A frown twisted Torquatus’s pale features, and the red motes in his eyes grew to sparks. “What sort of complication, Sarius?” he asked in a voice that made the Uruc tremble.

  Carefully, Sarius related the events of the last few weeks to the Goblin King. “We never found the body of the one who escaped us, but we did find this,” he concluded as he displayed the torn shreds of Elerian’s tunic, holding them with a black gloved hand.

  At the sight of the tunic, Torquatus relaxed somewhat on his throne, and the red receded from his eyes. “It would seem that the lupins have finally rid us of the last of our sworn enemies,” said Torquatus. “I find the disappearance of Drusus troubling, however. With the last Elf dead, he should have come to me for the reward I promised him. Take what forces you need, Sarius and find him,” he commanded. “If he is still alive when you capture him, question him closely until you discover all he knows.”

  “What then my lord?” asked Sarius.

  “Kill him,” said Torquatus with an evil smile. “Death was the only reward I planned for him once his usefulness was at an end. Even though he sought to conceal them from me, I know the treacherous thoughts the miserable creature harbored in his mind.”

  Once he was dismissed from the king’s presence, Sarius made his preparations and rode from Nefandus at once at the head of a score of tall Urucs dressed in black leather armor. The Goblins rode atriors, which resembled sleek, fine boned black horses. Instead of hooves, however, they had three toed feet armed with great hooked claws resembling those of birds of prey, and they snapped irritably at each other and their riders with the fangs of hunting beasts. Sixty slender Wood Goblins, or Mordi as they called themselves in their own language, followed the Urucs on foot. The Mordi were short, barely taller than Dwarves, but they were fierce fighters. Like the Urucs, they were dressed in black leather. Behind and around the Mordi swirled a pack made up of dozens of coal black lupins. There were other four footed hunters, too, besides the lupins. Leopardi, Goblins in the form of black, catlike creatures with red eyes and saber fangs the length of a long hand, padded aloofly at the margins of the company.

  The whole force took ship at Mordfyn, a Goblin city built on the shores of the Elvorix. They sailed south and then east, down the length of the river, until they reached the Mare Caerulus. Sailing south in their slim black galley, the Goblins hugged the western shoreline of the lake to avoid the water dragons that haunted the deep blue waters of the Mare. When the ship reached the Ancharus, at the outflow of the Mare, it sailed south down the main channel of the river, finally making port at Esdras, a dead city of the Ancharians. Sarius and his company disembarked and, crossing the Ancharus over the old bridge that still spanned the river, traveled east for four days through an empty land covered with trackless forests until they arrived once more at the cave where Sarius had left Bruscius and Hagar. It was now two days since the pair had fled into the forest to escape from Elerian.

  Sarius was puzzled when he found no recent signs of the two Goblins at the cave. After he saw the burnt remains of their gear, he concluded that a battle had taken place in the ravine during his absence. “What mischief have those two been up to, I wonder?” he thought to himself angrily. On the chance that they were still alive, he directed the lupins to search for the missing Urucs. They were eventually found hiding nearby on a small island in the midst of a swamp. When they were brought before Sarius, he looked with surprise but no sympathy at their scorched and battered features. Their injuries and burnt clothing seemed to support his guess that they had taken part in some fierce battle.

  “How did you two fools come to be in this state?” Sarius demanded coldly.

  Bruscius and Hagar gave each other sidelong looks. Except for one short trip to the cave, they had remained hidden in a hollow tree for the past two days, too injured and afraid to come out even to search for food. They had passed the time by discussing at great length between the two of them how they would explain their present sorry condition to Sarius when he finally returned. They knew better than to tell Sarius that they had brought trouble down on their heads by disobeying his orders, so they had concocted a story to explain the disaster which had befallen them. It was decided the Bruscius, being the cleverer of the two, would tell the tale.

  Twisting his scorched features into as honest an expression as he could manage, Bruscius began to speak. “After you left us, Sarius, we faithfully questioned the hill farmers as you ordered us, but we gained no new information. Careful as we were, we were discovered somehow, for a great party of Hesperians and their dogs launched an attack against us during the middle of the day. We fought valiantly, but the sunlight and their numbers forced us to flee at last with only the clothes on our backs. Their dogs pursued us deep into the forest. We were fortunate to escape with our lives.”

  Bruscius did not quite meet Sariu
s’s eyes as he told his story, and the Goblin captain did not doubt that he was hearing only a part of the events that had occurred.

  “What of the purse and the ring?” he asked angrily.

  “The men burnt up all our belongings,” said Bruscius reluctantly. “They must have been destroyed or carried away, for they were in my pack.”

  Sarius’s face darkened with anger, for both the purse and ring were of Elven make and could not be replaced. If he had been in less of a hurry, he might have questioned the pair more closely with the point of a heated knife to discover the details they had left out, but he decided to put the matter aside for another time. Both purse and ring were minor matters compared to the Goblin king’s command to find Drusus.

  “Arm yourselves and mount up,” Sarius ordered coldly. Bruscius and Hagar breathed sighs of relief and ran to do his bidding. Mounts had been brought for them, and they armed and clothed themselves from the store of spare gear which the Goblins carried with them. The sun was already dropping below the peaks of the Galerius by now, and the shadows were lengthening under the trees. At Sarius’s signal, several of the Urucs raised polished horns bound in hoops of dark iron and blew a series of harsh blasts that echoed through the forest and drifted up even to the hilltops on the still evening air. With a strong force at his command and the need for concealment gone, Sarius no longer cared who knew he was in the forest. A holiday air swept through the entire troop at the prospect of a hunt in the darkness. Eager to begin the chase, the lupins commenced to howl and yelp in anticipation, and the saber fanged leopardi roared thunderously and nervously twitched their thick tails. The frightening sounds carried faintly to the heights, and those still out of doors hurried inside and barred their doors, uncertain and fearful as to what was taking place in the lower forest.

  The lupins fanned out through the trees and soon struck a warm track, for now that the moon was dark once more, Drusus had emerged from his hiding place deep in the Abercius. He was on his way to Balbus’s farm when the crimson-eyed pack found his scent. As the lupins swept toward him, Drusus suddenly realized he was the prey and fled west, bypassing Balbus’s farm. Following Drusus’ trail, the hunt surged uphill toward Balbus’s farm with a great clamor of horns, shouts, and excited baying from the lupins.

  From his front doorstep, Balbus listened to the commotion for a moment before locking his door and arming himself with his sword. As he waited with his heart pounding in his chest, he wondered if the moment of reckoning was at hand. At any moment, he expected the Goblins to break down his front door, and he prepared to sell his life as dearly as possible to defend himself and Elerian. He shot a quick glance at the boy and was surprised to see that Elerian did not seem at all frightened. The boy’s keen ears had already told him that the hunt had turned north, away from the farm. Balbus, too, soon realized that the clamor was moving away, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

  Back in the forest, Drusus was not unduly frightened, for he had escaped many pursuits in his long life. He ran easily ahead of the lupins on all fours in great fluid bounds, traveling toward the safety of the Abercius. When he reached the border of the ancient forest, he clawed his way up a great tree trunk, agile as any squirrel. By traveling the upper pathways of the forest where they could not follow, he expected to escape from his pursuers as he had done so many times in the past. He had reckoned, however, without the leopardi that followed the pack of lupins. When the lupins swirled in frustration around the base of the tree Drusus had climbed to escape them, these creatures easily followed him into the branches. Although their powers of scent were less keen than those of the lupins, they had no difficulty in following Drusus through the treetops.

  North he fled now, his lungs on fire and panic in his heart as his pursuers followed him across the broad, twisting branches of the forest canopy. Whenever he cast a brief glance over his shoulder, he saw their red, fiery eyes close behind him. On the ground, the sounds of the hunt continued as the Goblins followed the hunters and their prey through the treetops. The Mordi had fallen far behind, but the Urucs kept pace, for their sleek atriors slipped through the trees in long, agile bounds rivaling those of the great beasts pursuing Drusus through the treetops.

  For the first time, Drusus began to lose hope. Heart beating wildly, he raced through the treetops until each labored breath scorched his lungs like fire. Exhausted and shaking with fear, he came suddenly to the stony banks of a dark, swift flowing river. He ran out on an overhanging branch, but the distance to the far bank was still too great for him to leap across. There was no time to hesitate. Barely escaping the claws of his pursuers, Drusus gave voice to a last despairing shriek as he leaped from the branch and plunged into the cold, dark waters many feet below him. With a strangled cry, he vanished below the surface as his pursuers descended from the trees and hesitated on the shoreline, snarling in disappointment and lashing their thick tails in anger at being denied their prey.

  When the lupins emerged from the forest followed by the swiftest of the atriors, Drusus’ head and shoulders suddenly broke the surface of the river. Sarius, who had led the hunt, saw him struggle for a moment and then vanish beneath the black waters of the river. At once, he sent the lupins along with the greater part of the mounted Urucs downstream to scour the banks of the river for any sign of Drusus. Sarius, himself, remained where he was, keeping a close eye on the far shore, but nothing broke the surface of the river again or emerged on the northern shore. When the Mordi finally arrived, he sent them west and waited alone with the leopardi. Hours later, both groups returned without finding any sign of Drusus.

  “The old fool must have drowned in the river or was taken by an anguis,” said Bruscius. “What orders now?”

  “It is time to return to Esdras and sail home again,” said Sarius reluctantly. His disappointment was evident in his voice, for he had hoped to carry Drusus’ black hide with him when he returned north. “I would have preferred to spill Drusus’ blood myself, but his death is the main thing. It concludes our business here in the southland for now.” Sarius ordered the horns to be sounded again, and after everyone had gathered together, led his party east toward Esdras and the black ship that waited to take them north.

  THE EARLY YEARS

  Balbus remained close to home for several weeks after hearing the Goblin horns in the forest. He remained fearful that the Goblins might suddenly appear on his doorstep and slept at night in his chair by the fireplace with his sword resting on his knees. Finally, with his nerves stretched to the breaking point, he decided to make an exploratory day time trip into the forest. He reluctantly took Elerian with him, rather than risk the boy secretly following him. For good measure, he also convinced Tullius to accompany them. They searched the forest as far west as the edge of the Abercius without finding any evidence of any Goblins in the forest other than the old tracks left behind by Sarius’s company. On their way back home, they stopped at the ravine where they had been held captive. The cave was deserted, so the two men sat by the entrance to rest while Carbo nosed about nearby for interesting scents. Elerian was attracted to the clear stream that flowed through the gully and was soon splashing in pursuit of the small trout that lived in the pools. It was a peaceful scene far removed from the desperate situation Balbus and Tullius had found themselves in when they were captured by the Goblins’ net. Tullius shuddered a little when he thought of how close he had come to having his tongue forcibly removed.

  “The Goblins appear to have left the forest for good this time,” said Balbus, interrupting Tullius’s thoughts. “The tracks we found led north, but there was no sign of any returning south.”

  “Your trick with the tunic must have finally convinced them that Elerian is dead,” said Tullius. “They appear to have returned one last time to hunt down something in the forest before leaving the country. I wonder what sort of creature it was and whether it had any connection to Elerian.”

  “I don’t care what they were chasing as long as they have all left, hopefull
y forever,” said Balbus who now wished to put the Goblins and all their doings out of his mind. Certain now, for the first time in weeks, that Elerian was safe, he wanted only to return to his normal routine of farming interspersed with trips into the forest.

  “Do not think the danger is over,” warned Tullius, as if he had some hint of Balbus’s thoughts. “You must watch over Elerian carefully so that he does nothing that will set the countryside talking. The Ancharians’ offer of silver will linger in men’s minds. If some spy of the Goblins passes this way again, there are those who will not hesitate to pass on information about Elerian in hopes of gaining a reward.”

  “I will do my best to keep him from being noticed,” said Balbus, unconcerned. He watched Elerian playing in the stream and was comforted by the fact that there was nothing in his appearance to set him apart from any other Hesperian child his age. “It should not be too difficult to conceal the boy,” he thought to himself. The two friends rose to their feet then, and after saying goodbye, returned to their homes: Balbus up into the hills and Tullius east into the forest.

  Convinced that the Goblins were finally gone, Balbus was able to resume his old life as he had hoped. He taught Elerian to speak Hesperian and also the common tongue that was spoken in all the countries of the Middle Realm; but when he was finally able to question the boy, he found that Elerian remembered running through the forest and being pursued by the lupins but nothing before that. Either Tullius’s spell or some terrible event had wiped his earlier memories away.

  Each year, Balbus celebrated Elerian’s birthday on August first, the day on which Elerian had first come into his life. On each birthday, Balbus presented Elerian with some special gift purchased with the silver from his magic purse. Other than that, he used his new found wealth sparingly, continuing to lead the same simple life he had lived before finding Elerian. When Balbus finally took notice of the silver ring on Elerian’s finger, he assumed that the boy had possessed it all along and soon forgot about it. Elerian gradually forgot about it, too. Neither Balbus nor Elerian ever thought to wonder how the ring continued to fit Elerian’s finger perfectly as he grew older and larger.