The Black Keep (The Chronicles of Llars)

by Tom Bielawski

  The ground in the cavern was comprised of a soft grass-like moss and bizarre trees dotted the landscape. To these surface dwellers, apart from knowing they were far below the surface, it all seemed quite a bit like a warm spring day in here, which was preferable to the cold dankness of the tunnel they had just left behind. There was a stream that wandered lazily through a glade nearby and there was even a forest. The trees they saw had leaves of varying colors and shapes and there were small bird-like creatures flitting to and fro among the boughs. Where there were no trees at all, wide open expanses of grassy moss flowed like the green pastures of the farmlands they all knew so well. A road meandered its way through the huge cavern and exposed the companions to bizarre sights of the Underllars. It took the group the rest of that day and many hours into what they would have considered night before they reached the far side of the cavern.

  Considering the peaceful nature of the place, Carym and Gennevera agreed that this would be a good place to rest before following the road into another tunnel and hopefully upward. Zach and the two sailors, though impressed by the sights, were eager to move on and objected at first to any delay whatsoever. Yet reason soon overcame their desire to see blue sky and they all decided to get some much needed sleep on the soft mossy ground; anything was better than sleeping on rocks.

  After a hasty camp was established and watch set, Zach approached Carym and said, “Why don’t I see what sort of food I can find? I don’t know how much more of that papery stuff you brought I can handle!”

  Carym had just laid out his bedroll and was eyeing it longingly. Yet he knew that he could not trust his friend to go alone and avoid trouble. The problem was that roll looked so darn comfy; he sighed. To Hades with you, Zach; I wish I could trust you!

  “I’ll come with you after we establish likely avenues of attack and set watch.”

  Zach nodded, commenting that such was a wise decision and wondering what had prompted the foursome to take such a militant approach to their movement. Something happened to them while he was gone, and he was curious to know what it was.

  The campsite they chose was in a good location. It was a short distance from the road and in the midst of a large rock formation that protruded from a field of soft mosses. Carym was pleased; their site provided cover and concealment from approaching enemies and it offered soft ground on which to sleep. Each of the group walked a distance away from the campsite to judge its concealment from afar, and to look for possible enemy approach points. Satisfied that the site was defensible, Carym left Yag in charge and Gennevera began searching for something with which to make a fire. Carym wondered if perhaps the fire was a show of faith that the two men would return with food worthy of a cook fire. His companions had demonstrated their faith in his abilities and had accepted his leadership over the past days. He didn’t really know if he was cut out for it and felt awkward at the unspoken compliments to his abilities.

  “Yag, I don’t want anyone leaving camp until we return.” The old captain nodded in agreement and set Gefar to first watch. Carym turned to say a word to Zach but saw that he was already a dozen yards away, walking towards a tree line. A tree line underground! He thought, shaking his head ruefully.

  He caught up to Zach quickly enough and the two wandered in silence, looking this way and that, stopping quietly in a crouch now and again to listen before moving on. Wildlife was oddly abundant enough in this bizarre Underllars forest and Carym wondered how much stranger this journey could get; perhaps they would fly to the moon next.

  Strange birds that looked like a cross between a bat and a finch flitted about from tree to tree, startled by the hunters as they stepped on fallen leaves that crunched like old bark unlike the papery leaves of surface trees. Every now and again Carym would catch a glimpse of a rat-sized lizard scurrying about the fallen leaves or up the rocky-looking bark of a tree. With a daring dive, Carym finally caught one of the lizards but was surprised to find that it wasn’t really a lizard at all. As he looked closer he saw that rather than scales, the creature had an outer carapace not unlike a bug. Yet the wiggling creature demonstrated remarkable flexibility, as though its tough carapace was actually stretchy. It also had four wings folded tightly along its back resembling those of a dragonfly, and its tail curved up and over its body flicking this way and that. What really caught his attention was that the lizard had six legs! He hadn’t noticed that fact at first because its uppermost two legs appeared to have been tucked away, hidden, under its chest until he picked it up. As he did so, the creature’s forelegs dropped from folds of its carapace and dangled lazily beneath as it made a sound not unlike a purring kitten. Then with horror, he realized that these legs didn’t end in small feet like the other four, rather each ended in a long needle-like spear!

  Carym quickly dropped the startling - but docile - creature deciding that it would not likely prove a tasty meal and caught up to Zach. His friend was crouching low behind a tree and watching an open grassy glade intently. As Carym settled in behind his friend he saw what Zach was staring at: a heard of small deer-like creatures grazing quietly not more than a dozen yards away. They had apparently heard Carym approach and after a curious glance in his direction they returned to their contented grazing. The deer had fur that was both gray and brown and only some of them had antlers. Of those that did possess antlers, each had only one spiral antler rising from the center of its head. Several of the deer were perched upon boulders like goats, plucking mosses with their teeth; their feet were small and ended in paws, rather than hooves. The cat-like resemblance didn’t end there, noticed Carym with awe. The deer also had large whiskers and strangely large orb-like eyes.

  He began to wonder whether these animals would be suitable prey to hunt, but his thoughts were interrupted when Zach made a furtive movement with his hand. Suddenly the herd of deer bounded away; all but one that is. Carym watched as a medium-sized deer staggered and dropped to its forelegs making a pathetic bugling sound, a dagger protruding from its neck. The deer dropped to the ground, flanks flaring with effort, one of its back legs kicking out in panic. Finally the deer turned onto its side, its kicking becoming weaker and weaker until it stopped altogether. Zach was clearly pleased with himself as the two moved in to retrieve the kill, although Carym wasn’t sure the pair should be so happy about it. But the rumble in his belly convinced him otherwise and he shared a smile with his old friend and they prepared to dress the deer and drag it back to their camp.

  As they began to move out a loud voice rang out from behind them. A loud, deep, guttural, voice that could only belong to an orok! The two quickly dropped their deer and ducked behind the cover of a nearby copse of trees, expecting that the predictable oroks would fire a volley of arrows at them and they did. Then a voice rang out above the snapping of bowstrings, and Carym looked at Zach helplessly. Zach could only shrug, indicating he didn’t speak Orokish either.

  “Ag tagog, taknob! Ig tagoo, tagoogoo fin rooktook!” it said again. A quick count showed three oroks visible, which meant at least three more were hiding in the trees. Oroks were not very intelligent creatures, having little more reasoning skills than some of the smarter animals in the world. They lived in bands of close-knit families and often resorted to raiding and poaching. Their attack skills were very plain and very predictable. They almost always gave themselves away by shouting at their intended victims and usually hid half their numbers in reserve, typically archers. They often used the most basic envelopment technique with their archers off to one side, creating a better kill zone. Oroks fared well enough with these tactics against average travelers untrained in martial skills, but any person with a background in military tactics could read their attacks like an open book.

  Which is precisely with the two friends did.

  C H A P T E R

  5

  Silver Mountain.

  A Prophecy.

  Zach brandished both dagger and sword and Carym drew his fighting sticks; he had not the ability yet to affect objects a
cross a distance and he was loath to cut a swath of destruction with his clumsy control of the Flame Sigil in this wondrous place unless he truly had to. The oroks chortled wickedly as the friends spread out and prepared to fight.

  The three oroks advanced in typical orok fashion, with directness and brute force, and Carym assumed the others were advancing from their flank, periodically firing poorly aimed arrows. Most oroks preferred bludgeoning weapons over edged weapons as they are much easier to maintain, and this band was no exception. Each carried his own homemade cudgel or mace or a big club and one brandished a stick with a large rock affixed to the end. They were attired in typical orok fashion too; furs, pelts, hides, and leathers, with various pieces of bones, skulls, feathers and even war paint adorning their clothing.

  The first orok crashed into Zach at full speed expecting to trample him with brute force. Yet Zach dispatched the creature quickly and with ease, three solid strikes in seconds sealed the orok’s doom. Carym was impressed with his friend’s quickness but promptly forgot about it as an orok charged from the trees behind him. Hades! He cursed himself for letting a lousy orok flank him. Now he had lost sight of Zach. Carym was able to make short work of this orok, scoring a few quick but forceful blows to the head. He turned from the orok to protect himself from another attack even before the other had fallen to the floor. He was rewarded for his efforts with a blow to his side that surely had broken ribs and propelled him to the ground a few feet away. Luckily he was able to keep his wits about him, even though the pain was excruciating, and he staggered to his feet with his batons up to block the next blow. Luck was with him again, as the dim-witted beast used a typical orok overhead attack which Carym anticipated and blocked readily. With more effort than should have been necessary, Carym used an “X” block with his batons and was able to lock the orok’s mace between his own weapons. He forced the startled creature’s weapon away and followed with a fatal blow to the head.

  Carym collapsed to the ground then, as his adrenaline left him and the pain returned. Stars filled his vision and he tried mightily to get to his knees but to no avail. He let himself fall back down and closed his eyes, letting his sight shift into the colorful world of the Tidal flows. Soon the Tidal forces became clear, eddying and swirling around him, this way and that, lulling him with a false sensation of basking in a cool stream.

  Dangerous! Cannot get lost in this! Mathonry had warned him about that. He turned his thoughts inward, letting only the earthen and crimson colored flows touch him, exploring his wounds; Mathonry had not taught him much of the other Sigils yet. He had indeed suffered a broken rib, and some internal damage; he cursed himself for not thinking of the armor spell that Mathonry had taught him. He did remember the minor healing spell, though he was not eager to use it as it would drain him. But he had little choice. There were probably more oroks about and he didn’t know where Zach was.

  Wrapping his body in the currents of earth and flame, both cool and warm at the same time, not unlike a cocoon; he spoke the basic Sigil that commanded the Tides and the healing took effect. For a few short moments Carym was lost to the power of the spell, defenseless. Searing pain wracked his body as fire and ice flowed through his veins at once, then all was calm. He cracked his eyes, and through his star-filled vision he saw a diminutive creature looking startlingly like a trok staring back at him. Curiously, the trok did not attack him. He blinked rapidly, letting his vision clear and rolled to his feet fumbling with his batons.

  “What in Hades Fires...?” he wondered aloud, his throat rasping. He was stronger now and healed, but felt like he had a hangover and was in no shape to have a fighting chance against the trok. To his surprise, the trok had moved away from him and was towered over by an orok. The trok handled the orok very quickly and turned to face Carym, a slender sword in hand. Carym had both of his bo-tani sticks out and used his Sigil power to enflame them.

  “No harm to you!” he heard the trok saying as it sheathed its sword. “No harm to you!” it repeated in heavily accented - What? Cklathish? Sargannish? His head was starting to clear now, and it was definitely Cklathish the trok was speaking. As his eyes began to focus, he saw that the trok was holding both hands out palms up, and stated again, “No harm to you!”

  “What do you want?” Carym demanded, feeling stronger by the minute. He was sure he had enough of the Tides wrapped around him to cause a few stones to explode around the trok should he try anything, and the Sigilspell for his magical armor was on the tip of his tongue. It was then that he saw the trok was a she, and she was completely unlike any trok Carym had seen thus far. Her garb was orderly and neat, if travel-worn, and decorated with a symbol of a silver mountain over her left breast. Her features were far softer and rounder than what he had seen of the other troks before and her skin was very pale, not dark like the other troks; what he would expect of a person who had spent her life under a mountain. And, he thought, she looked decidedly more Elvish than the troks. Perhaps trok females were like that.

  “Are you a trok?” he asked, unsteadily, still ready to lash out and blow up whatever he could. “What do you want with me?”

  “No, I am not a trok,” she said the word with venom. Carym noticed that the woman shifted her speech to be far more Cklathish than it had been moments before, she must have recognized his own dialect. “We came to help you! We saw you fighting oroks and we knew you couldn’t be one of those vile Zuharim. They are not welcome here!”

  “Not a trok?” he asked, still skeptical despite her Elvish appearance. She was just too small. He wondered where the blazes Zach was and how Genn and the others were faring.

  “Bah,” she snorted. “Do I look so much like a trok to you?”

  “A little,” he replied. “And they wanted to kill me.”

  She simply stood there, staring down her nose and up at him at the same time - if that was possible. Her dark hair fell in curls to her shoulders, framing a very pretty face, and her silvery mail glistening in the odd light of the cavern. She said nothing, daring him not see reason.

  Finally Carym nodded. Elf or trok, he was surely surrounded. Had they been troks, he would be fighting for his life right now...or dead.

  “I see that I have much to learn of the peoples who inhabit the Underllars. I will not harm you.” Carym separated his batons and collapsed them back into their smaller carrying size, and placed them in his belt. The woman snorted, as though doubting Carym could, in fact, do anything of the sort.

  “I am Xin Xi Zhuan, I am the Zhuan of the Silver Mountain Elves,” she paused to let that sink in and was rewarded with a curious look from Carym. “We are not troks. We have fought them dearly to maintain our lands and ancient holdings here for centuries,” she gestured to the beautiful cavern around them. “Now. Who are you and why are you here, surface dweller?”

  “I am Carym of Hyrum,” he said. “Hryum is a Cklathish thaynedome that once was free, but was subjugated by the Arnathian Empire generations ago.” She seemed to recognize the names. “You are at war with the oroks?” he asked.

  “Bah,” she snorted again. “War is hardly an appropriate term. They are little better than predatory animals, which we beat into submission from time to time. It is surprising the stupid beasts can even use their hands to hold a weapon at all! No, they are quite easily handled. ’Tis the Trokkish clans and the Clan of the Rock Warves with whom we war!”

  “There is civil war, then?” he asked, still unsure of the relationship between the troks and the Silver Mountain Elves.

  “No. Our clans have never held with the Trokkish societies. They are far too brutal and devious, downright evil. Silver Mountain Clan does what is right for Silver Mountain Clan. The others are little better than the demons and necromancers, and the warves they consort with!” she spat. Carym let it go at that. He understood well enough the important points; Silver Mountain considered themselves elves, not troks, and struggled with troks to maintain control of their own lands.

  “Clan of the Rock Warves?
Aren’t they dwarves? I thought they disappeared centuries ago.”

  “Ignorant surface dweller!” she sneered. Then, with an exasperated sigh she said, “The ‘dwarves’ have disappeared. They suffered a situation not unlike our own. The dwarves, as they were known then, existed in many clan societies. Some of them separated from the other societies and sought out realms far deeper than our own and close to the Gateway to Hades, where they found a large quantity of silveryl. They became known as the Clan of the Rock Warves and forsook all ties to the Dwarvish clans and septs of the Upper Realms.

  “It wasn’t long before their greed corrupted them, and they returned to the Dwarvish realms with a host of demonic spirits. A monumental battle was fought and the dwarves lost. Those that survived fled from the Underllars to the surface and were never seen again. To this day the Dwarvish holdings are terribly haunted, even the troks will not go there. The Clan of the Rock Warves maintains a token presence to fend off any unlikely intrusions from outsiders, but they truly prefer the Hellish Lower Realms.

  “I only hope that we will not share their fate, for we are outnumbered by a far greater measure than even the dwarves ever were.”

  Zach burst into the clearing brandishing his blood stained blades, and skidded to a halt. Shock registered on his face, clearly not expecting to see anyone else and certainly not Carym talking calmly to what he thought was a trok. The shock passed as quickly as it arrived when Zach spun on his heel, facing the way he came and squatted to the ground, sword upraised. Carym and the woman had the same thoughts and quickly sidestepped to cover behind trees preparing to fight whatever was pursuing Zach.