The Foundling (The Hidden Realm)

by A. Giannetti

  Desperately twisting and turning to evade their sharp blades, Elerian retreated before them. Before he could decide what to do next, his illusion suddenly vanished, and instead of a huge spotted leopard baring its long fangs, the mutare now saw only a small boy with a knife standing before them. A moment later, their keen noses brought them the man scent, a young and tender one at that, confirming that the image before them was real.

  “Grab him,” shouted Gratus to Fagus, determined not to let this delectable prize get away. He and Fagus sprang on Elerian with a speed that seemed improbable in such ungainly looking creatures. Fortunately for Elerian, they got in each other’s way, but even so, he barely had time to scramble up a nearby tree trunk ahead of their reaching claws. The tree provided no safe haven, however. With their knives between their yellowed teeth, the two mutare followed him, their long claws digging deep into the tree’s thick bark.

  Elerian now found himself in a race for his life as the mutare pursued him through the treetops at a breakneck pace. Determined to capture the tasty meal that Elerian represented to them, they followed him on all fours, fearlessly leaping across any gaps that appeared between the ends of the branches over which they pursued him. Their eager snarls and harsh breathing filled Elerian’s ears. Several times, as he gathered his strength to make some difficult leap, he felt their claws tug at the back of his tunic or pant legs as they sought to seize him or send him plunging to the ground.

  Even with the extreme danger he was in, Elerian managed to keep his wits about him. As he avoided the reaching claws of the mutare, he continually drew them in the opposite direction from that which Balbus and Tullius had traveled; eventually leading them back into the upper forest. Because the trees on the hillsides were more scattered than those in the lowlands, Elerian inevitably came to a gap he could not jump across. As he turned and leaped for the upper branches of the tree he was in to escape his pursuers, one of the mutare grabbed at his right ankle, but luckily, the creature’s paw failed to get a firm grip. Its sharp claws left four deep furrows in Elerian’s skin that burned and bled freely as he climbed high into the tree where the limbs were so thin they bent and swayed ominously, even under his light weight. Ignoring the pain from the slashes on his ankle, Elerian paused a moment to regain his breath. He looked for another escape route, and his heart sank in his chest as he suddenly realized that there was none. He had trapped himself. The only way to reach another tree was to descend to the thicker, lower branches below, where the mutare were now standing. Certain that they had their elusive prey cornered at last, both of the hairy creatures licked their thin black lips in anticipation of a rare feast.

  “Come down little one,” rumbled Fagus. “You have nowhere else to run. Come down now and we will kill you quickly. If you don’t, I will make you pay many times over for the cut you gave me.”

  Beside him, Gratus suddenly flung his knife in a lightning throw. Elerian twisted to one side and deftly caught the knife handle in his left hand as it sped by him. With a flick of his wrist, he threw it back at Gratus, neatly slicing off the pointed tip of Gratus’s right ear as the mutare ducked his head to one side to avoid the knife. Gratus cursed loudly as blood streamed down his hairy ear, and Fagus roared with laughter to see Elerian get the best of him.

  “Watch out Gratus,” he said wickedly. “He almost put your eye out that time.”

  “I’ll put out his eyes and more,” rumbled Gratus furiously. With his powerful hands, he broke off a nearby limb as thick as his wrist and nearly fifteen feet long. Handling the heavy branch as if it weighed no more than a twig, he quickly stripped off the smaller limbs and leaves before carefully adding a sharp point to the end of the branch with Fagus’s knife, for his own had fallen to the ground. He then began to climb higher into the tree.

  Elerian watched him apprehensively, for the makeshift spear the mutare gripped in his right hand might reach his perch if Gratus climbed high enough. In that case, Gratus could either skewer him with it or use it to knock him free of the slender branches which precariously supported his weight. Under Elerian’s worried gaze, Gratus carefully climbed as high as he dared before slowly advancing his pointed limb. The whole time, he glared spitefully up at Elerian with his cruel yellow eyes, determined to make him suffer as much as possible for the thrown knife which had almost taken his life. With anxious eyes, Elerian watched as the pointed tip of the branch advanced higher and higher.

  A TIMELY RESCUE

  As Gratus made a sudden thrust with his branch, Elerian desperately twisted away from the point, which tore through his tunic and shirt. A searing pain from his right side told him that the point had found his flesh. From below, he heard Gratus snarling in disappointment, for the mutare had intended to impale Elerian through his stomach instead of his side. With a sudden, powerful, sideways tug, Gratus sought to dislodge Elerian from the branches which held him aloft. Elerian swayed wildly on his unsteady perch, holding on desperately as the mutare yanked forcefully at his tunic with his improvised lance. He heard the crack of overstressed wood and the ripping of cloth as the branch suddenly tore free of his clothing. Below him, Gratus cursed as he almost lost his balance and fell from the branch he was standing on, but he kept hold of his improvised spear. After he regained his footing, Gratus repositioned his branch. Elerian saw that the sharp tip was red with blood, and he was suddenly aware of a warm trickle running down his side from the wound Gratus had inflicted on him. At the sight of the blood staining the side of Elerian’s tunic, Gratus licked his lips, and his yellow eyes gleamed with enjoyment. After examining his makeshift lance to assure himself that it was still sound, he readied it for another thrust.

  Bleakly, Elerian watched the pointed tip of the branch advance toward him. He could not escape, and if Gratus succeeded in capturing him alive, he knew his death would be long and painful. “Better to leap to the ground and make a quick end,” he thought to himself, but he made no move to let go his hold. Something inside him stubbornly refused to give up, despite the hopelessness of his situation.

  Gratus suddenly made his next thrust, his yellow eyes glowing in anticipation. As the deadly point darted toward him, Elerian again twisted desperately to one side. The end of Gratus’s stick ripped through his tunic and tore a second, painful gash, this time along the left side of his chest. Elerian felt an odd, unfamiliar feeling run through him, as if his body had suddenly become fluid and was flowing like water. Out of the corner of his left eye, he saw that a wave of golden light had spilled from his ring and enveloped his body. His desperate plight had finally roused his unpredictable mage powers.

  Gratus again tugged viciously at Elerian’s tunic with his improvised lance, a triumphant smile on his brutal face. The smile turned to a look of disbelief as Elerian suddenly vanished. A small, sleek brown form darted from the left sleeve of the tunic, leaving it hanging empty and limp from the point of the spear. Before the astonished eyes of the mutare, Elerian’s boots fell past them, followed by Elerian’s empty pants with his knife still hanging from his belt. By then, the squirrel which had leaped out of Elerian’s tunic was already in the branches of a neighboring tree. From there, it vanished into the leaves of the forest canopy in the blink of an eye. Neither of the mutare noticed that the squirrel wore a small, silver ring on one of the fingers of its left paw.

  “A shape changer,” said Gratus to Fagus as he disgustedly tossed his now useless branch aside. Cursing loudly, he began to climb down out of the tree, for he and Fagus had no hope of following such a small creature as Elerian had become through the treetops. In an evil mood, with only the loss of a part of Gratus’s ear to show for their efforts, they retrieved the small boar Gratus had thrown at Elerian and set out once more for their den.

  Elerian was already far ahead of them. He had quickly realized that he had somehow changed into one of the large brown squirrels he had observed so often in the forest. Had he been on his own, he would have stopped to explore the new shape he wore, but his one thought now was to
rescue Balbus and Tullius before the mutare reached them. As he ran, Elerian quickly adjusted to his new form. With his eyes now set on the sides of his head, he found that he could see both in front and behind, but his night vision had lessened, for the squirrel he had become was a creature of the daylight hours. His sense of smell was more acute now, but his hearing only equaled what he had possessed before the change. When he suddenly ran to the end of a thin branch and leaped across a ten-foot gap to the next tree, a long, bushy tail unfolded behind him to slow and guide his fall.

  Elerian was just becoming comfortable in his new form when, suddenly, as he ran along a narrow branch high above the ground, his body began to change in mid jump. As his body flowed and reshaped itself, Elerian tumbled helplessly off the branch, striking other limbs that became progressively thicker as he fell toward the ground far below. Luckily, he fetched up heavily against a branch substantial enough to hold his weight. Even though the wind was knocked out of his chest, he managed to wrap both arms around it and stop his fall. Bruised and shaken, Elerian slowly climbed down to a thicker branch and stood for a moment, taking stock of his situation. He found that none of his bones had broken in the fall. The wounds in his sides were still bleeding, but neither was as deep as he had feared.

  “Well,” he thought to himself, “I am still alive and I have gained a lead on those creatures. All it cost me was my clothes and a couple of shallow wounds. It could have been worse,” he thought to himself philosophically. “Now I must make use of the lead I have gained.” As he descended to the ground, Elerian noticed that his ring was still on his finger. “It seems to grow and shrink to accommodate the size of my finger,” he thought to himself. “I am fortunate I did not lose it along with my clothes.”

  Ignoring the bruises and still bleeding wounds he had suffered, Elerian ran through the forest until he found the tracks of the missing men again. Knowing the mutare would not be far behind him, Elerian darted many a nervous glance over his shoulder as he followed the trail Balbus and Tullius had left behind. When he drew near to the ravine, he recognized the woods around him and realized that he was approaching the cave the Goblins had used so many years ago. His sharp eyes immediately spied Tullius’s staff where it lay on the ground. The sight of the staff alarmed him, for Elerian knew that Tullius would never have left it there willingly.

  “I hope I am not too late to save them,” he thought anxiously as he bent to pick up the staff. It tingled strangely in his right hand when he closed his fingers around it, but he ignored the feeling and ran quietly to the edge of the ravine. Elerian remembered the place at once although he had not seen it in years. He stopped for a moment to make sure that there was no one about before climbing down to the bottom and cautiously making his way to the nearby entrance of the cave. Elerian cautiously looked past the entrance, for he was not sure if there were more of the strange creatures he had encountered in the forest concealed in the cave.

  It was dark inside the cave, but Elerian’s eyes had no difficulty in penetrating the gloom. He saw at once that the cave was empty except for two men sitting back to back near the left hand wall. Elerian recognized Balbus and Tullius immediately, but his first thought was that they were already dead, for they were not moving.

  “I am too late,” he thought to himself. Grief flooded over him, but it was shot with threads of bright anger as he considered how he might take revenge on the creatures who had slain his grandfather and his friend.

  Suddenly, a low moan filled the cave, and Balbus began to struggle weakly against his bonds. Elerian ran to his side at once and saw that both men were still alive, although they were in a miserable state. They were not aware of him yet, for their eyes could not penetrate the thick darkness which filled the cave.

  With no time to waste, Elerian dropped Tullius’s staff and ran to a pile of discarded clothing and gear which was piled haphazardly against the wall in a corner of the cave. As he searched through it, he discovered a broken knife that the mutare had discarded. Elerian eagerly seized the knife and ran back to Balbus and Tullius.

  “Who is there?” asked Balbus as he sensed someone beside him.

  “It is Elerian. I have come to set you and Tullius free,” said Elerian as he sawed with the broken blade of the knife at the ropes binding Balbus and Tullius together.

  “Run and get help before you are caught too, Elerian,” said Balbus urgently, more concerned with Elerian’s safety than his own. “There is a pair of terrible creatures about, and they may return at any moment.”

  Ignoring his grandfather’s command, Elerian continued cutting with his broken knife. When he was able to pull the two men apart, he cut through the straps binding Balbus’s wrists together. Balbus groaned in pain as they parted, and his stiffened arms fell free. Elerian next severed the leather straps wrapped around Balbus’s ankles before turning his attention to Tullius. Soon, both men were free of their bonds, but they were in a pitiable state, groaning in pain as the circulation was slowly restored to their hands and feet. Elerian vigorously chafed their limbs, heedless of their groans and protests, driven by the fear that the mutare would appear at any moment. Balbus continued to urge Elerian to run away and seek help before the mutare returned.

  As the pain in his hands slowly abated, Tullius’s first thought was for his staff. “Elerian,” he said anxiously, “I dropped my staff outside. Can you find it for me?” Tullius could not see any more in the dark cave than Balbus, but a few moments later, he felt the smooth wood of his staff against the fingers of his right hand.

  “Good boy,” he said gratefully. As soon as he was able to work some feeling back into his right hand, Tullius closed it firmly on his staff. A moment later, a bright mage light blossomed into existence a foot above Tullius’s head, chasing the darkness from the cave. For a moment, the two men were speechless when they saw Elerian standing before them naked as the day he was born, bright blood dripping down both sides of his chest. Then, at the sound of an angry growl, all three of them started and turned their eyes toward the entrance of the cave.

  The thick bodies of the two mutare blocked the opening, and a hopeless feeling filled Elerian at the sight of their angry faces. At that moment, he was certain that none of them would escape from the cave alive. Determined to fight to the last, he stepped in front of Balbus and Tullius with the broken knife held threateningly in his right hand. His defiance provoked cruel laughter from the mutare.

  “Stay here,” Gratus commanded Fagus. While Fagus blocked the entrance, Gratus planned to circle around the two men and the boy. He was fairly certain they did not know about the back entrance to the cave, but he did not want to risk any of them escaping. The men looked as if they were barely able to walk, but the boy seemed capable of running, despite his injuries. Gratus had plans for the boy. He meant to take a special revenge for the sliced ear Elerian had inflicted on him. “I’ll slice his ears off and more besides,” he thought spitefully to himself as he began to ease away from the cave entrance.

  As the mutare began to sidle away from the cave entrance, Tullius suddenly raised his staff. With a terrible anger burning in his dark eyes, he shouted, “Ruere!” in a loud voice.

  A look of fear flashed across both mutares’ faces at the sight of the staff, and they tried desperately to back out of the cave entrance. Elerian saw a small golden sphere flash by over his head. Anger and haste spoiled Tullius’s aim, however, and the sphere struck the right side of the cave entrance instead of hitting the mutare. To Elerian’s delight, there was a tremendous cracking sound that deafened the ears of everyone in the cave, and splinters of rock flew in all directions, most of them striking the mutare who howled in pain. Bleeding from the splinters of rock, stunned and deafened by the blast caused by the destruction spell, the mutare watched in horror as Tullius raised his staff for a second time. Without a backward look, they forced themselves through the cave entrance and vanished into the night, howling in fear.

  In a towering rage, heedless of the cries of war
ning from Balbus, Tullius forgot his bruises and ran past Elerian, determined to inflict more damage on his captors. The mutare were almost at the limits of Tullius’s mage light when he reached the entrance to the cave, but the furious mage managed to send a second spell after them as they bounded up the side of the ravine. Again, he scored a clean miss. The spell struck a tree to the right of the mutare with an earsplitting crack, and a hail of splinters exploded from the tree trunk. They whizzed through the air, many of them sticking fast into the mutare who shrieked in pain before disappearing over the edge of the ravine.

  Now it was Tullius’s turn to shout, “Stop!” as the naked figure of Elerian suddenly sped by him. While Tullius watched helplessly, Elerian disappeared over the edge of the ravine, following the same path the mutare had taken.

  THE CHASE

  The sight of the retreating mutare proved irresistible to Elerian. Now that Balbus and Tullius were safe, he was not about to let an opportunity for mischief slip away. Ignoring Tullius’s call to stop and undeterred by his lack of clothes or weapons, he followed the mutare through the forest, led on by the sound of their pounding feet. Without any real notion of how he would use it, Elerian snatched up a stout branch that had fallen to the forest floor. As his left hand closed around it, he felt his unpredictable power stir, and a familiar flow of golden light spilled from his silver ring. He felt no physical change so he guessed that the ring had cloaked him in an illusion. What that illusion might be, he had no idea, for his eyes were unable to see what lay beneath the golden film of light that now covered him from head to foot.