Into the Wastelands: Book Four of the Restoration Series

by Williams, Christopher

  Surprised they all began looking around again, causing Warren to chuckle. “It’s not in this room.”

  Heather looked back through the arch, “In the cavern?” She hadn’t seen anything that would make her think that a suit of Dragon armor was hidden there.

  Warren looked like he didn’t want to answer but he finally nodded his head. “Yes.”

  “And this room is where we make our last stand?” Aaron asked. He sounded tired.

  Once again Warren nodded, “Yes.”

  “That means all we did was lead the goblins straight to where the armor is located.” Mikela said and she wore a look of pure disgust. “Would have been better to turn and fight the goblins in the passage.”

  Looking a little angry, Warren opened his mouth to respond but never got the chance.

  “Heather!” Atock’s voice called from the cavern.

  For just a moment, Heather and Warren stared at each other and then they bolted back through the arch.

  The steep slope was much easier to go down than it had been coming up and they quickly reached the shore of the lake and ran over to where the four men stood guard.

  “What is it?” Heather demanded as they arrived, both of them slightly out of breath.

  Both Enton and Jerrold opened their mouths to explain and then closed them quickly, glaring at each other.

  It didn’t matter though, it soon became apparent exactly what it was that had called them back down.

  “Hello up there!” A man’s voice called from near the base of the waterfall. “Come on out and let’s talk.” There was a slight pause and then, “I personally guarantee your safety, at least for the duration of our discussion.”

  She had a feeling that she knew who this was and it made her heart sink. She looked at Warren and he nodded.

  “Stay here,” Heather said to the others. Besides Atock and Enton, the rest of the group had come back down the slope to join them.

  “It could be a trick,” Enton said. His eyes looked worried.

  “Perhaps,” Heather agreed, “but let’s see.”

  Warren and Heather entered the short passage. It seemed much longer than it had the first time she had passed through. At it’s end, she could see the darkness of the cavern and hear the sound of the water falling to the river far below. Reaching the end, they looked out over the cavern. It was filling up with goblins; a truly amazing number of them already stood along the river. At the base of the steps, right beside the waterfall, stood the same four humans that Heather had seen the night of the goblin crucifixion. The bald warrior stood in front and was smiling up at them. The other three stood a ways behind him. They were all looking up.

  “Nice of you to come visit us,” the bald man said, his grin growing bigger. “I think you may have saved us some time in our search for Nerandall. Tell me, it is up there with you or is it down here in this room?”

  “Sorry. Can’t help you,” Warren answered.

  The big man laughed, “Oh, I think you can. The only question in my mind is just how much pain it will take for you to tell me what I want to know.”

  The magician’s eyes went wide and she stepped forward, a wicked smile spreading across her face. “She was at Mul-Dune. They have to be looking for the armor.”

  Surprised the bald man studied Heather for several moments, he appeared to be trying to remember her. Finally, he smiled even more. “Why don’t we skip the bloodshed and save you a lot of pain. Tell me where the armor is, give it to me, and we will leave.”

  “Never,” Warren said quickly.

  “You know what the end result has to be. We will storm your little hole and torture the answers out of you. It is inevitable.”

  “As it was at Mul-Dune,” Heather said, speaking for the first time. “I believe that Zalustus said something similar to Flare before the battle began.”

  That wiped the smiles off of their faces, albeit briefly. “Fine,” the bald man said after a moment, his tone had gone dangerous, “we’ll see if you repeat that little miracle again this time.” He turned and walked back along the river. The other fighter and the smaller man followed, but the magician hesitated. She studied Heather for several long moments; then she also turned and walked away.

  “Come on,” Warren said, “they’ll be coming soon.”

  “Wait a moment,” Heather said. “Did you purposefully not tell us where the armor is so that we couldn’t tell if tortured?”

  “No,” Warren answered easily and quickly enough. “I didn’t tell you because I’m not supposed to tell you.”

  Chapter 24

  Flare closed his eyes and resisted the headache that had been building for several hours. It had been three days since Ossendar had come back into his possession and he would not leave it alone, even for a moment. Too many people wanted to take it from him, so he guarded it jealously. In fact, he kept his pack with him at all times as well. If the opportunity to leave arose, he didn’t want to have wait on retrieving his pack.

  His headache wasn’t helped by the tumult that seemed to be going on all around him. He sat between Belgil and Holgar on a too low bench that was pulled up to a too low table.

  He had learned that dwarves did not stand on ceremony when it came to food. He had spent the last three days going to great feasts with the nobles of the dwarven city. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced. Elves, and human nobles to a lesser degree, were calm and tried to use manners at balls and feasts. Not the dwarves. Every meal was loud and uproarious. Dwarves talked over other dwarves and all while eating. Belching and burping were commonplace as was picking one’s teeth at the table. Food was routinely thrown from one dwarf to another. Sometimes the second dwarf wanted to eat the food and other times the first dwarf just wanted to him with it.

  After the grandness of the dwarven city, the feasting room was a bit of a disappointment. It was little more than a rectangular room with three long tables. Everyone sat at one of the three tables, even the king. A fire burned in an oversized fireplace at one end of the room and the walls were unadorned stone. There were two open doorways that led to the kitchen beyond.

  Flare and the two dwarves sat on an end of the table by themselves. The other dwarves had given him a wide berth and that was fine with him. He wasn’t here to socialize; he was here because the dwarven king had said he wanted to speak with him. So far, there hadn’t been much talking between the two and none in private. To this point, Flare had resisted using wizardry to remove himself from the city, but with everyday the temptation became more difficult to resist.

  It would be simple. All he had to do was use wizardry and he could be halfway to Saprasia. He sighed deeply, remembering Mortimer’s first lessons on summoning through air.

  It had been nearly a year after he had reached Sha’al before they had began summoning with air. The first year had been spent giving Flare a very basic understanding of summoning.

  Sitting outside of the stone tower, Flare had sat to Mortimer’s right and they had spent hours staring at the tower door. Mortimer had instructed Flare to leave the door open.

  “While a doorway or arch is not necessary for this type of summoning, it does tend to make it easier for a novice to learn,” Mortimer said, “and some type of enclosure must be used.”

  “What if I summon another location but I don’t use a doorway or some other type of enclosure?” Flare asked. Mortimer had not answered, except to shudder at the very thought.

  It had taken days before he was able to force his will to interact with the open doorway and then more days before he could begin to see a difference in the air. Up until now, the doorway had always just shown the chamber of the tower beyond. Now, occasionally, there was a view of something different in the doorway. It wasn’t much, not even something clearly identifiable. It was more like a swirling vortex of color.

  Mortimer sighed. The old wizard readjusted his position on the stone upon which he sat and said, “Are you thinking about the riverbank?”

  Flare
took a deep breath and did not immediately answer. In truth he had not been thinking about the riverbank; mainly due to his amazement at seeing the change in the doorway. He refocused his thoughts on the riverbank and once again forced his will to interact with the air.

  That was when it happened. He felt a vibrating boom and the view in the doorway changed. Gone was the room beyond; it was now showing the riverbank where they sometimes held lessons.

  Exhilaration flowed through him. He had done it. He had summoned another location to touch his current location. He grinned at Mortimer, “I did it!”

  Mortimer smiled a grandfatherly smile at him.

  It was the kind of smile a grandfather had for a child the first time he fed himself and got most of the food in his mouth. It didn’t matter though, nothing could dampen Flare’s spirits.

  “This will be such a boon to me!” Flare said, his smile still threatening to split his face in two. “I can travel anywhere in the blink of an eye.”

  “Well, not anywhere.” Mortimer corrected. “There is a limitation.”

  Flare’s smile slid away. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “You can only summon a location where you have been before. You can’t travel somewhere that you have never visited.”

  That deflated his excitement a bit, but not much.

  “Flare!” Belgil’s voice called causing Flare to jump.

  “What?” he demanded, a bit louder than he had intended.

  But Belgil took no offense, he was grinning. “Were you asleep?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Because you’ve barely eaten anything,” Belgil said. “I’ve seen you eat and I know how uncommon that is for you.”

  Flare ignored Belgil’s joking words and instead asked a rather pointed question. “Is the king avoiding me?”

  Belgil shared a look with Holgar. “I don’t know,” he said simply. “He has not asked for our opinion, nor has he shared his with us.”

  Flare looked to where King Vognar sat eating. He rightfully sat at the head of the center table but, as always, Emlin sat at his right. Even now the councilor caught Flare’s eye and scowled at him.

  Anger welled up a little at the whole situation. He didn’t have time for this, and then a calm settled over him. If it was time to go, then it was time to go.

  “Belgil,” Flare began, “can you get a message to the King for me?”

  Belgil and Holgar shared another look but Belgil nodded his assent. “What message?”

  “Please inform the king that I must leave within the hour,” Flare said after a brief pause. “Tell him I must go with or without his blessing.”

  Belgil took a deep breath and got up from his seat. He walked quickly to where the king sat and whispered in his ear. The king listened and then looked at Flare. After a moment he said something in reply to Belgil and the dwarf nodded.

  Belgil returned quickly.

  “Well,” Flare asked, “what did he say?”

  “He said if you’re that unappreciative of the dwarven hospitality then perhaps you should go. He also said good luck finding your way out of here.”

  Anger blossomed within Flare and he pushed himself to his feet. He could hear Belgil’s low urgent whispers to not do anything rash, but he chose to ignore them. Dwarven hospitality indeed!

  The king’s eyes were on him and Flare stared right back. The raucous laughter cut out gradually and silence fell.

  “I thank you for your hospitality, my king,” Flare said. He tried to keep the anger out of his tone but failed miserably. “The time has come when I must be going.”

  “And how are you going to do that?” Emlin asked from his place beside the king. “None of us will show you the way.”

  In answer, Flare let his eyes briefly go unfocused. Once it had taken him hours to force his will to do as he wished, but it was much easier now. Without even turning to look at the door, he directed his will to summon a spot he had been to long ago. It seemed like forever since Sergeant Wellman had taken him east of Telur to train, it had been just prior to the testing to see who would be allowed to join the Guardians. That was the farthest along the Eastern road that he had been and that was where he intended to go to tonight. The booming vibration rolled over him and the dwarves jumped. The wizard always heard the vibrating sound, but normally they were the only ones who did. Flare allowed the dwarves to hear the sound too, hoping to startle them.

  Flare turned and looked at the right hand doorway that led to the kitchen. No longer was there a view into the kitchen. No longer were the dwarven servants visible through the doorway. Instead, a view of the Eastern Road could be seen through the narrow opening. It was dark, the light of the moon not enough to illuminate the scene. A breeze blew through the portal and it brought a refreshing thought of the forests to Flare’s mind.

  He took one step towards the portal and stopped. He turned to Belgil and Holgar, both of whom sat there with their mouths hanging open. They weren’t the only rooms in the room who stared openmouthed at the scene before them. “Thank you for all your help. I will never forget all your assistance.”

  Turning, he started for the open portal. He had only taken three steps when King Vognar rose to his feet and said, “Stop! You must not leave.”

  Flare did stop, and then he turned to face the dwarven king.

  “Let him go, sire,” Emlin said, standing beside the king. “Let us be rid of him.”

  King Vognar did not look in Emlin’s direction; he continued to focus on Flare. “Please, you must not go.”

  Something in the tone bothered Flare. It seemed the king had changed from nearly insulting to pleading in a heartbeat or two. “And why must I stay?” he asked after a brief pause.

  The king hesitated and then sighed deeply. “Because I can help you.”

  Involuntarily, Flare took a step forward. “Help me? How?”

  The king motioned towards the doorway and the night scene of the road beyond. “Where is that?”

  “On the Eastern Road, just to the east of Telur,” Flare answered.

  “It would take you at least a month to get to Saprasia from there,” the king said. He paused momentarily before speaking again, “I can get you all the way to Saprasia tonight.”

  Flare joined the other dwarves in staring open-mouthed at the king. What he said didn’t make any sense. After a few moments, he found his voice. “How, exactly, will you do that?”

  King Vognar did not answer immediately. Instead, he looked at the faces of the assembled dwarves. Finally, he said, “Clear the room!”

  There was a heartbeat of silence and then the dwarves began getting up from the tables and walking quickly out. Belgil and Holgar hung back and Belgil cleared his throat, “Excuse me, sire. Did you mean us as well?”

  “No,” the king answered quickly, “you and Holgar may stay.”

  “My king,” Emlin said in his normal oily voice, “I must object. Let him go and be done with him.”

  “You, however, can leave,” the king said to Emlin.

  The councilor’s eyes went wide and then he scowled. To his credit, he didn’t grumble on the way out of the room. At least not where they could hear him. Not a word was said until Emlin was gone and the door closed behind him.

  “You don’t like my councilor very much, do you?” Vognar asked after Emlin had left the room.

  “No,” Flare answered without even pausing. “Why do you keep that ass around?”

  Vognar smiled at that. “Precisely because he is such an ass.”

  Flare looked at Belgil and Holgar and saw the same confusion he was feeling mirrored on their faces. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Ah, but it does,” Vognar said. “A king has to give many orders and commands that are unpopular with the people. By letting Emlin be seen as my closest advisor, he takes much of the people’s anger.”

  “So you don’t agree with him?”

  Vognar shrugged, “He’s petty and can be downright vindictive, but that only helps hi
m do the job that I have set before him.”

  With a slightly newfound respect for the dwarven king, Flare dismissed the part of the Eastern Road that he had summoned and the door snapped back to a view of the empty kitchen.

  “You’re not the most patient of men, are you?” the king asked after a moment or two of silence.

  “Patient!” Flare snapped right back. The anger in his tone caused both Belgil and Holgar to flinch. “For days I have been a guest in your house, and before that I was a guest in your dungeon. I waited a long time to get my first audience and I grow weary of waiting on a second one. Why did you have me stay in your house if you did not want to speak with me?”

  Vognar nodded, “You are quite right, but I have not been ignoring you these last several days. I have been consulting with the scholars. Trying to discern what your appearance means to the dwarves. Until I knew that, there is little I could do for you.”

  “And what have you discovered?”

  “Very little, I’m afraid. However, the dwarven prophecies agree with the human prophecies.”

  Flare was surprised. He didn’t even know there were dwarven prophecies. He probably should have though.

  “It seems,” the king continued, “that you are the lesser of two evils.”

  “Two evils?” Flare repeated, not liking the sound of the words. “Are you comparing me to Zalustus?”

  “Who?”

  “Sorry,” Flare said, realizing he had never mentioned Zalustus’ name to the dwarves, “Zalustus is the other one trying to restore the Dragon Order.”

  “I understand that he is supposed to be a monster, but I wasn’t sure which one you were. Just because you say that you’re the good one, doesn’t make it so.”

  “All right then,” Flare said, as a burst of hope blossomed within him. “Are you ready to accept the premise that I’m better for the world than Zalustus?”

  “Perhaps,” Vognar answered, “perhaps.” He sighed deeply. “Let me tell you what I’m prepared to accept. War is coming to the land and I don’t think the dwarves will be able to avoid this fight. I fear that this Zalustus, should he prove victorious, would not be satisfied only ruling the human kingdoms, but will eventually lay siege to the dwarven cities.”