by A. Giannetti
“It was nothing,” replied Ascilius modestly. “I have always had a head for heights you know.”
“Is your companion well Ascilius?” asked Gavros abruptly. “He seems to be having a fit of some kind.”
From behind Gavros’s broad back, Ascilius frowned at Elerian who was doing his best to suppress a fit of silent laughter.
“The years that he spent in the Goblins’ mines have affected his wits,” he said blandly to Gavros. “He will recover his senses in a moment.”
The cheering Dwarves who filled the ridge road from curb to curb now attracted Gavros’s attention. “You have retaken the castella,” he said in amazement to Ascilius.
“Yes, it has been an eventful night,” replied Ascilius. “Is the passageway from the stables to the city still open, Gavros? Soon hundreds of wagons from Ennodius will start arriving in the stables of the castella.”
“Wagons can no longer enter the passageway, for we have made it into a trap for the Goblins, rigging it to collapse if the outside gate is forced, but your people can still enter on foot if they are careful,” replied Gavros. “We can go down and open the doors now after which I will launch an attack from the city gates to keep the Goblins’ attention away from the fortress until all of your people are inside.”
“Have you that much authority now?” asked Ascilius in surprise.
“I was given command all of the city forces after Boldus fell defending the castella,” replied Gavros somberly as he turned and entered the passageway behind the balcony door. As Gavros turned his back, Elerian removed the spell which held the rope stretched across the ravine rigid. He then raised his right arm and sent a calling spell across the gulf, the charm striking Acris precisely on its hilt. When he saw the sword suddenly appear in Elerian’s right hand, Ascilius frowned darkly as he realized that Elerian had tricked him into crossing the ravine over the rope.
“You said it was too far for a spell,” he said softly to Elerian, his voice quivering with indignation.
“No, I said it was far enough that I might miss,” replied Elerian innocently as he coiled the now limp rope hanging from the balcony rail. “If you throttle me in front of all the Dwarves on the road, it will raise awkward questions in their minds,” he said with a maddening smile when he noticed that Ascilius’s powerful fingers had begun to twitch.
Ascilius looked across the ravine where hundreds of pairs of eyes were fixed on him and Elerian. Grinding his teeth in frustration, he waved and received more cheers in response.
“Just wait until we are alone,” he growled softly to Elerian as he turned and entered the tunnel behind him.
“By then, I will have thought of something else to distract him,” thought Elerian, his eyes gleaming with laughter as he followed Ascilius and Gavros through the third level of Galenus to the great ramp that rose up through the center of the city. Every tunnel they traveled through was lit bright as day by mage lights hung from the ceilings, but there were few Dwarves about to note their passage. The Goblins’ siege appeared to have cast a pall over the city, causing most of its inhabitants to remain closeted in their homes.
Gavros quickly led Ascilius and Elerian down the ramp and through the stables on the first level of the city until they stood before a set of double doors located in the southeast wall of the stables.
“Open the doors,” he commanded the two surprised gate guards. Crossbars were hastily removed and the great shot bolts holding the doors closed were drawn back. One of the sentries handed Gavros a mage light set in a wire cage that was attached to a wrought iron staff.
“Follow me and touch nothing,” Gavros advised Ascilius and Elerian. When the two companions followed the Dwarf into the dark tunnel behind the doors, Elerian’s third eye opened, revealing a line of shimmering columns of golden light marching away down the center of the passageway. In the center of each column was a darker, barely visible cylindrical shape.
“A line of stone supports, delicately balanced and hidden by an illusion spell, supports the ceiling above us which has been made thin as an eggshell and then magically hardened,” explained Gavros to the two companions. “Resting out of sight on the roof of the passageway are tons of stone which will fall and fill the entire tunnel if even one post is dislodged.”
“A clever trap,” remarked Ascilius to Gavros. Although Ascilius appeared to have forgotten his earlier anger, Elerian was still careful to stay out of his reach.
An ancient Dwarf with snowy locks and beard now entered the passageway. When he raised his right hand, Elerian saw a small golden orb fly from his fingers with his magical eye. The spell struck the first post and then leaped to the next until the entire line of columns was engulfed in a cloak of golden light. When Elerian’s third eye closed, he saw a line of fragile appearing stone posts running down the center of the passageway, stripped of the illusion spell which had made them invisible before. Inlaid in each post was a small silvery glyph.
“The same magic which concealed the forest road was used to conceal these posts,” thought Elerian to himself. “I will squeeze the secret of the glyphs out of Ascilius as soon as time permits,” he promised himself.
Keeping close to the left wall of the passageway, Gavros now led the way to the end of the tunnel, followed by Ascilius and Elerian.
“I would rather walk the rope over the ravine blindfolded than traverse this tunnel with my eyes open,” thought Elerian uneasily to himself as he walked behind Ascilius. The weight of the rock above him was almost palpable, and it seemed to him that he could hear the ceiling groan under the weight of the stone it supported.
After Gavros and Ascilius removed the crossbars and drew back the bolts that held the doors into the castella closed, Ascilius thrust open the right hand door, coming face to face with Falco and several of his Dwarves.
“Just in time,” said Falco to Ascilius, flashing his ready smile. “The first of the wagons is already here.”
Looking over Ascilius’s right shoulder, Elerian saw yellow lantern lights in the distance, their bright rays illuminating a steady stream of Dwarves, ponies, and wagons pouring into the stables from the hidden tunnel in the east wall of the fortress.
“Your people will have to abandon their wagons and anything that they cannot carry on their backs,” said Gavros regretfully to Ascilius. “I will send guides with lights to help them through the passageway, but then I must leave you to lead the sortie from the front gates of the city. If all goes well I will meet with you in the stables of Galenus when the battle is over.”
“Elerian and I can help you fight,” volunteered Ascilius as he clasped right forearms with Gavros.
“Better that you remain here and see that all goes smoothly,” replied Gavros firmly. “Remember, a single, inadvertent thrust against one of the pillars will bring the whole passageway down.” Turning on his heel, he disappeared into the tunnel behind him.
Leaving Ascilius and Falco to bring their people into the city, Elerian returned to the passageway above the gates to the castella. It was thick now with Dwarves shooting crossbow quarrels through the grates set in the floor above the tunnel between the inner and outer gates. A rhythmic, hollow booming sound filled the air as Trolls battered the inner gate with great hammers. Screams and a wild howling welled up through the openings in the floor answered by war cries from the bearded lips of the Dwarves, their dark eyes inflamed by the desire to slaughter their enemies. The bloody scene struck no chord within Elerian, filling him instead with melancholy, for it seemed to him that a dark shadow drifted silently through it, death creeping about looking for its next victim.
“How many more will fall before this night is over?” he wondered sadly to himself as he stepped up to one of the tall arrow slits that penetrated the outside wall of the passageway. In the distance, Elerian saw the gates of the city suddenly swing open. Led by Gavros, hundreds of Dwarves issued from the passageway behind the doors, shouting war cries. When they reached the front lines of the enemy forces, the Dwarves li
nked shields and began driving the Goblins and mutare opposing them farther away from the gates of the city while behind the shield wall they had formed, hundreds more Dwarves rained down crossbow quarrels on the enemy, taking a heavy toll of their numbers. Alerted by the din of battle, Sarius, who still stood in the entrance of his dark pavilion, looked toward the city and cursed when he saw the open gates and the advancing Dwarves.
“The fall of the castella and the arrival of a new leader have emboldened the little people,” he thought angrily to himself. “They think to overwhelm my forces from behind, but I will soon teach them that they have overreached themselves.” Shouting for his messengers, Sarius gave orders for his army to return. With many a muttered curse at the capriciousness of their leader’s orders, the Goblin horde reversed itself, rushing back to engage the Dwarf forces that had emerged from Galenus. The siege engines and the ram followed more slowly.
“Take care Gavros,” thought Elerian anxiously to himself from his vantage point in the castella, for it seemed to him that the Dwarf commander now ran the risk of venturing too far from the city gates, to the point where his forces might be surrounded by the thousands of mutare and Wood Goblins rushing back from the castella. At precisely the right moment, however, the crafty Gavros suddenly gave the order to draw back. To the accompaniment of repeated horn blasts, his Dwarves retreated inside the gates to the city, slamming them shut in the faces of the howling hordes of changelings that pursued them.
“Well done Gavros,” thought Elerian to himself as horns began to blow inside the fortress behind him, signaling the defenders above the gate to abandon their posts, for the last of the Dwarves from Ennodius had now entered Galenus. At the same moment, from his dark pavilion, Sarius regarded the closed gates of Galenus with a baleful look.
“The Dwarves have lost their courage now that they are faced with the might of my entire army, but they will not escape me for long,” he thought viciously to himself. “Once I have recaptured the castella and the two escaped slaves, I will come knocking on their gates with my new ram.” Calling for an atrior, Sarius rode out to his troops, giving orders for a second assault on the fortress.
Inside the castella, Elerian followed the retreating Dwarves to the stables, finding that the cavernous chamber was now filled with abandoned wagons. When he reached the entryway of the passageway that led into Galenus, he found Ascilius waiting there, an impatient look on his face.
“Hurry,” he said urgently. “We must seal the tunnel into the city before the Goblins break into the fortress.”
Silently, Elerian followed Ascilius and the last few Dwarves of Falco’s company into the passageway. Once they had all passed through the entranceway, the doors were closed and locked by a pair of Dwarves bearing weighty hammers who then followed them through the tunnel. When everyone had left the passageway, one of the Dwarves cast his hammer into the center of the tunnel, shattering the first of the columns that supported the ceiling. As he and his companion slammed the steel doors of the passageway closed, Elerian heard the rumble of tortured stone. Beneath his feet, the floor trembled.
“It is done then,” he thought to himself when the noise finally died away, and the doors to the sealed passageway ceased to tremble. “Ascilius and his people are safe, and I am finally free to return to Anthea. The Goblins may have blocked off the front door, but Galenus, like every other Dwarf city that I have seen, will surely have a back door that I can slip out of.” With a light heart, Elerian turned away from the doorway to follow Ascilius who had settled himself on a nearby stone bench to await Gavros.
While Ascilius and Elerian waited for Gavros in the stables of Galenus, Sarius watched impatiently as his Trolls dragged their battering ram toward the inner gate of the castella which remained strangely quiet before their advance. Not a single crossbow bolt came from the narrow slots above the ruined gate.
“The Dwarves have likely fled back into Galenus,” thought Sarius to himself as the Trolls tore the inner gate off its hinges with their ram. When the way was clear, he rode into the great outer hall, finding it empty as he had expected. He rode at once down the central ramp to the stables, reining in his fractious atrior before the exit to the ramp. Sarius comprehended at once the deception the Dwarves had played on him as soon as he saw the hundreds of abandoned wagons scattered about the stables.
“My trap has been sprung, but not in the way that I anticipated,” mused Sarius to himself with a frown on his pale brow. “These wagons can only have come from Ennodius. Either the Dwarf’s companion is truly a master of the gates as Agar claims, or somewhere on this level there is door rendered invisible by the craft of the little people.” Urging his mount through the abandoned wagons, Sarius reined in his atrior before the doorway that led into Galenus.
“The feint from the front gates allowed the Dwarves that rode in these wagons to enter the city unopposed and unobserved,” he thought to himself as he glared at the closed double doors. Riding up to the entranceway, Sarius rapped on the right hand door with the pommel of his sword. The seemingly light blow produced a loud, dull thud as if a great weight had suddenly struck the door, but the portal remained as fixed and unmoving as the stone around it.
“The passageway behind these doors has been collapsed and made impassable,” thought Sarius to himself. “Even now the little people are no doubt congratulating themselves on their cleverness at my expense. We will soon see if they have cause to celebrate or not,” he thought grimly to himself. “Before I deal with them, however, I must solve the mystery of how these wagons arrived from Ennodius.”
Leaving the castella through the front gate with a small group of sharp-eyed Wood Goblins, Sarius rode around the perimeter of the fortress, heading in a northerly direction. Deep in the forest, his wood crafty Goblins found the marks of wagon wheels on the ground before a sheer gray cliff. Further investigation revealed more wheel marks leading northeast into the forest.
“Agar’s talk of gates is nonsense,” thought Sarius scornfully to himself. “There is a door hidden in the cliff face, a door which the Dwarves from Ennodius reached by traveling through the forest undetected. It was no doubt accomplished with magic, but it will avail them nothing. I now have them in a net they will not soon escape as they have no doubt found out by now.”
The Mordi who accompanied Sarius gave each other puzzled looks as their commander began to laugh softly to himself. Filled with grim satisfaction, Sarius rode back to his dark pavilion, plotting his next move against the Dwarves of Galenus.
EONIS
Elerian and Ascilius did not have long to wait before Gavros returned for them. After he and Ascilius exchanged a great deal of heavy handed backslapping and loud congratulations, the Dwarf commander led the two companions down a street that ran through the center of the vast stables and granaries that occupied the first level of the city. Yellow mage lights hung from the ceiling of the huge chamber, illuminating every corner, and the air was warm, smelling of hay and beasts. Whinnies and excited nickering rang out constantly from the ponies that had come from Ennodius as they settled into their new stalls and availed themselves of the water and fresh hay that had been provided for them. Cheers filled the air as the throngs of Dwarves crowding the streets of the stables recognized Ascilius. Against all odds and with little loss of life, he had brought them safe into Galenus as he had promised, and for that everyone felt that he deserved praise. Elerian did not hear anyone call his name, but he saw many a speculative look directed his way by the older Dwarves.
“My disguise is wearing thin,” he thought to himself. He still wore the illusion of a Tarsi warrior, worn and marked by a difficult life, but he saw that many of the Dwarves now suspected that there was more to him than what their eyes showed them. His exploits were already being told and retold, and they far exceeded the abilities of a human mage and warrior. “I could reveal myself, but that would only cause confusion and rampant speculation,” thought Elerian to himself. “Some might even use the knowledge against
me. I think that I am better off to remain as I am, for now at least.”
When they entered the central ramp, Elerian found it to be far different in appearance from the ramp that he had used in Ennodius. There was no darkness or even a shadow here, for ornate lamps containing gold and silver mage lights hung on chains attached to the curving ceiling of the passageway. The floors and walls, polished smooth as glass, gleamed softly with reflected light. Beneath the shining surface of the stone Elerian could see the veins of varicolored minerals that ran through it, presenting fantastical, ornate designs to the eye.
“Is this all hardened magically?” asked Elerian of Ascilius as he ran the palm of his right hand over the cool, smooth surface of the wall on his right.
“It is, but it was done over a period of many years, for it is a slow, tedious process,” replied Ascilius. “Much of the stone that makes up the walls and ceilings of the city has been similarly transformed, making it almost as hard and durable as adamant.”
“Why bother with pillars then?” asked Elerian, thinking of all the stone columns he had seen in the stables.
“Magic is a tremendous aid,” replied Ascilius patiently, “but you must remember, Elerian, that it has a drawback as I showed you before in the Broken Lands when I shattered your stone knife. Anything created by magic can also be undone by other magic. We Dwarves do not wish to share the fate of the Elves who depended entirely on the magical shield around their homeland to keep them safe. When it failed, they were left defenseless and destroyed by the Goblins. That is why we make our walls thick and support our halls with sturdy pillars. We Dwarves are a cautious lot when it comes to magic, for we know that it can fail.”
When they left the ramp at the fourth level and entered the circular hall that wrapped itself around the central pillar of stone through which the ramp rose, Elerian saw a Dwarf city in all its glory for the first time. The ceiling of the chamber was at least fifty feet high, supported by great stone pillars carved in the shapes of trees which rose out of the polished floor at regular intervals. Their stone branches and leaves covered the entire roof of the hall, each twig and leaf perfectly carved. Mage lamps of green, gold, and silver hung among the stone boughs, blending to produce the green tinted light of a forest grove on a bright, sunny afternoon. Their bright rays were reflected by the shining, jeweled eyes of carved stone birds that sang among the branches. Throngs of Dwarves dressed in brightly colored, hooded tunics filled the floor of the hall. Elerian saw adults of both sexes as well as tiny, noisy youngsters who scampered about underfoot, so different from their solemn elders.