by J Battle
Moving quietly for such a big man, he raced along the hall, drawing his sword as he ran. The Stone imbedded in the sword’s hilt burned at his palms, but he took little notice.
He only knew the words for speed or strength, and he chose speed. ‘Per idum jest las,’ he whispered as he ran, and the walls of the Rulehall became a blur. He barged into the side of the standing Trytor and such was the impact that he knocked him to one side.
Everyone else seeming to move slowly; Lydorth struggling to right himself to one side; the half-formed Trytor pushing his meal to one side to give him room to defend himself, but moving as slow as a snail who’s not at his best.
Richard swung his sword and sliced Teldorn’s long ugly head from his long ugly neck.
As he spun, carried by the momentum of his swing, he felt the speed leak away and time returned to its normal relaxed pace.
He brought the sword around in a half-crouch, ready for the attack from the other Trytor, knowing that only the sharpness of his sword and the skill of his arm would save him.
Then he sighed, and he lowered his sword.
Lydorth was not there, to take his vengeance for the death, again, of his brother. He’d fled at the sight of a man and a sword, and even now he was racing through the hidden tunnels of his home, desperately seeking safety.
He truly was the least of the Trytor.
Chapter 81 Gorge
Gorge didn’t hear the roar of a half-giant, or the thunder of tumbling of rocks. He didn’t see the gust of dust bursting into the great cavern.
He was ignorant of all that happened beyond the rough arched walls. He didn’t even know that he was imprisoned, with his way to freedom blocked by half a mountain.
After his mad crazy run around the cavern, he’d stopped at a massive Stone crouching at the far edge of the cavern. It was easily five times as large as any other, and his first thought was that he wouldn’t be taking that away with him.
Then he’d found himself kneeling by its side, and the great Wellstone glowed in welcome.
Though he could still feel the Magic of the first Stone bursting through his veins, he felt something altogether different here. Power on an unfathomable scale.
He ripped his shirt off and tossed it to the side. Without a thought or a second’s hesitation, he pressed the flesh of his chest against the burning Stone, and he screamed.
The sudden pain was such that consciousness fled, and he never got the chance to say the powerful ancient words of control. So the massive Stone fed, and he should have died then, in the depths of the mountain, all alone and blocked off from his friends.
The Stone fed, and he remained still, draped across its fatal surface, for a thousand years, or a split-second. Who can say?
All that kept him alive for whatever that expanse of time turned out to be, was the gift of the first Wellstone. Its Magic sustained him.
When the Wellstone stopped feeding, when it was fully satiated, it did what all Wellstones do; it gave back to the poor boy more than it had taken.
But this Stone was different, it kept on giving until it had nothing left, and its glow faded away. The boy slid from the dull brown stone to the floor, and he curled up and he slept.
He awoke hours later, and he stretched, with a half-smile on his face, for he’d dreamed the strangest of dreams. He’d gone into the mountain after a new Wellstone, and he’d found one.
He shook his head and opened his eyes, to find that his dream was the truth.
He leapt to his feet, and he spun around. ‘Oh my,‘ he gasped, as he looked at the high curved ceiling, and the still glowing Stones.
‘This is real.’
He touched the nearest Stone, expecting to feel the sharp pain. But the Stone just felt slightly warm, and there was no response, apart from the fading of its glow.
He touched another Stone, and then one more, with the same result. Was his journey wasted?
But one Stone had reacted. He rushed to the Stone nearest the entrance, hardly noticing the scattering of rubble.
He placed his hand on the Stone he’d first touched, but this time there was no response.
Confused and disappointed, he rushed to the largest of the stones. He slapped his hands onto its flat surface, and the great Stone fell to dust at his touch.
‘What…?’
With a sob, he sat down on the dusty rock of the Cavern. It had all seemed so simple when he read Anders’ books. Just come up here and get a new Stone that would work for him, and then return to take care of the valley.
But, the Stone had responded, when he first touched it, and so had the big one. He was certain of that, if of nothing else.
After a time, he gathered himself together and stood up.
‘This ain’t going to get me nowhere,‘ he said, with a sigh.
He began to walk across the cavern.
‘I’ll go back home and I’ll study some more, and I’ll find out what I did wrong, I will. Yes, that’d be fine. Did I say the wrong words? In the wrong order?’
He walked through the tunnel, oblivious to the new scattering of dirt and stones.
After passing what he estimated to be three-quarters of the way back to the cave, he found his way blocked.
‘Oh,’ he said, as he turned around to see if he’d taken a wrong turning. But no, he’d noticed on his way in that the roof here bulged down like an old man’s bottom, and there it was.
‘Did something happen?’ he said, and then he gave a nervous little laugh, because, obviously, something had.
‘Mayhap, it can be cleared,’ he said, as he reached up to take a fist-sized rock from near the ceiling. When he’d pulled out a smaller stone behind it, he stood on his tip-toes to see if he could see through to the other side.
All he could see was more rock, and dirt, and more rocks.
He dropped back down to his heels, and he lowered his arms.
If he didn’t get past this blockage, he was going to die here, lost and unknown.
But he wasn’t worried. Not at all.
Somehow, he knew that he’d be fine. Not in that, nothing bad can happen to me way that most people have. It was as if he knew that something would save him, but couldn’t quite say what it was.
Could it be that Sam and Tom were on the other side? Mayhap he’d heard them and hadn’t realised?
He listened for the sound of someone working on the other side to save him, but there was nothing. If Sam was on the other side, then he’d suddenly found a way to be quiet after all these years of blundering around in the loudest fashion.
He began to walk back and forward, running through everything that had happened to him over the past day. He remembered the first Stone; it had reacted just as he’d hoped. And there was the big Stone. Suddenly a memory of that terrible pain emerged. It must have fed on him, and the Magic from the first Stone must have protected him from its hunger. But, when a Stone feeds, it gives back more than it takes.
What about the Magic words? he thought, as he came to a stop facing the centre of the blockage. Did I say them, and not remember? Is that what saved me?
He looked at the nearest rock, jutting from the wall.
‘Per id, est dem plu…’ He stopped, because he could feel something. His fingertips tingled, and the tunnel seemed suddenly brighter. He could taste the dust on his tongue, and he could sense the 100 yards of fallen mountain between him and the outside world.
‘Per id, est dem plutre, Fell tsi li bel.’ As he spoke the ancient words of people dead for eons, he took a step forward, and then another. And he kept on walking.
He closed his eyes because the ripples of flashing light that filled the tunnel made him feel queasy, but he kept on walking, whilst all around him was the crash and creak and thunder of a million separate pieces of matter, all with the same intent; to get out of his way.
Within seconds, it seemed, he was walking out of the cave onto the island of clear rock that looked down on God’s Saddle.
He stopped and took a deep breath,
and he spat out the dust that clogged his mouth.
He lifted up his hands and, he didn’t know why, as he’d never before in his life done such a thing, but he roared out his challenge to the night, and to the world.
Far below him, he could clearly see in the starlight the green ripple in the land that was the valley.
‘I’ll go there now,’ he whispered, ‘and I’ll make everything fine, and the Lady, she’ll smile at me, she will.’
He allowed his eyes to flit across the land, past the high mountains to the East, and the rich lands to the West.
Then his eyes rested again on the valley.
‘It’s such a small place, the valley,’ he said, around a building smile. ‘And the world, it’s just so big. I can do so much more out there than just in the valley. I can make the world a better place. I can be sure that everyone in the world is fed, and if there be monsters out there, then I can destroy them, I can. And people will love me, they will, and when they see me coming, they’ll just smile, because I’m their…what will I be? Their king? Their emperor?’
He’d read all about kings and emperors in the books that the Lady had encouraged him to read.
‘Yes, that will do fine,’ he said, as he began to walk, ‘and when I pass them by, they’ll all bow their heads, no, they’ll kneel, they will.’
He stepped onto the ice, and it turned to stone, to ease his passage to the valley.
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*** THE END ***
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This Cleansing Flame
Misthaven: Book III
Book I
When the age of Magic ends, then the First Men shall return
Chapter 1 Woewearer
She leapt the steps two at a time, rejoicing in the strength of her youthful limbs, for she had been old for such a long time.
She stopped at the top and gasped at the sight presented to her.
She had been here before, of course she had, for she was Ellaine Woewearer and there could hardly be a place in this land that she had not visited.
Never before had she stood on this wall and looked across the length of the reservoir and been able to see into the valley of Misthaven, now exposed for all to see.
She stepped onto the once hidden path that meandered its relaxed unhurried way across the water.
‘At least I’ll keep my feet dry,’ she said, as she began to walk.
As was her wont, she sang as she walked.
‘They are lost to the sky, and lost to the earth
Though their lives were brim-filled with worth.’
She stopped singing and she shook her head.
‘Nonsense words,’ she said. ‘They lived little lives with little of value or honour, and nothing to raise them from the dust in people’s memory.’
She pondered last night’s dreams as she walked.
‘Meldon died,’ she said, ‘though I knew not his name. And a Trytor died; twice it seemed.’
She nodded, and she may well have smiled, for she saw Lord Richard’s hand in that.
‘Will you ever return, lad?’ she wondered. ’To your home and your beloved daughter. Nay, lad; not just yet, I reckon.’
She was close to half-way across the reservoir when one of her visions struck her, and she swayed, coming close to taking a dip in the cool water.
There were flames and screams, and people running hither and thither, and black thorns biting into flesh. And there was a single pair of dark eyes, seeming to look directly into her soul.
‘What is this abomination?’ she whispered, as she half-turned. She looked back beyond the reservoir, across the town below her to the sea, and to the island directly south, to Fairisle.
She retraced her path, rushing as she went, and she had almost reached the wall when another vision assailed her.
She sank to her knees and covered her face with her hands.
‘Too much,’ she said, when the vision had passed. ‘Too much, indeed, you poor boy.’
She rose to her feet, suddenly feeling the weight of all of her years resting on her shoulders.
‘What is to be done?’ she said, as she looked back over her shoulder into Misthaven. ‘He comes, and he does not know what he’s done.’
She sighed as she climbed back onto the wall and began her descent.
‘What is to be done?’ she repeated, as she stepped down onto the road beside the dam that towered over Hesselton.
‘This needs a drink and a pipe and some quiet consideration,’ she said, and she crossed the road.
When she was settled in a tavern with a tankard of ale and her pipe settled on the table before her, she felt somewhat recovered from the shock of the double visions.
Her visions gave her a taste of what was to come, but they were never entirely clear or complete. And, if she chose to intervene, then the future became even less certain, for she never knew what the effects of her actions would be.
She thought of the Giants she had set on Rizer’s Edge to stop the Trytor from coming to Hesselton, and how that had caused the deaths of Lord Richard’s wife and daughter, and the servants travelling with them.
‘But, if I do nothing now, then terrible things will happen, and that’s for sure.’
She drank her ale, but she left her pipe unsmoked, for she had no taste for it.
She had come to no firm decisions, except to order another tankard, when the door swung open with a crash and a thin individual who had received nothing but misfortune in face and form from nature, came rushing into the barroom.
‘Hey!’ he said, banging his fist on the bar. ’You gotta see this, and that’s the honest truth, it is.’
Ellaine looked up at his words, but the silent drinkers in the corner were too concerned with their ale to pay any attention. The pair couldn’t even lift their eyes from their tankards.
‘No, come outside and see!’ the newcomer urged. ‘Come on!’
‘What is it, Bradford?’ asked the landlord. ’Don’t you be telling my customers to leave. I’ll be doing that when I’m good and ready, I will.’
‘No, you’ve gotta come as well. You won’t believe it, you won’t.’
Ellaine rose and went to the door. ‘Well, come and show us what you’ve seen,’ she said.
‘It don’t need no showing, miss. All it needs is some looking, I reckon.’
Ellaine stepped outside and the man was proved correct immediately.
‘No showing, indeed,’ she said, as she looked across the road and above the dam at the great white wall of mist that now protected Misthaven from the prying eyes of the world.
‘Oh my,’ she said, as she began to walk across the road, the decision suddenly made.
Chapter 2 Boys
‘It’s cold enough to freeze a snowman, it is,’ said Sam, with a shiver for emphasis.
Tom gave him a look as if to say, ‘What does that mean, on a month filled with blue moons?’
‘Just think how cold poor old Gorge will be, then,’ he said, instead, and pulled his cloak tighter against the cold.
‘Do you reckon he’ll find one? A Wellstone, like.’
Tom shrugged. ‘Who knows? But Gorge normally knows what he’s about, he does, and he wouldn’t be across that ice there if he didn’t know something.’
‘What if it don’t talk to him, like the mage’s Stone didn’t?’
‘Well, that’d be a sad thing for sure, after he’s gone to all this trouble.’
‘Will he be long, do you reckon?’
‘It might go quicker without all the questions, if you ask me.’
‘Sorry. I’m just…you know?’
‘Ay, Sam, I’m the same. But it don’t do no good, all that worrying, it don’t. That’s what Dan the Man always says. ‘Don’t worry about naught you can do naught about,’ he says.’
Sam chuckled. ‘Old Dan the Man, he’s got a saying for everything, I reckon, with more than one or two to spare.’
‘I…hold on there a second, what’s this?’ s
aid Tom, as he took a step forward. ‘The ice…it’s…I don’t know what it’s doing, but it don’t look like ice no more, it don’t.’
‘Is it thawing, do you reckon? But it’s too cold to thaw.’
‘Thawing don’t turn ice to stone, Sam, not last time I looked, it didn’t.’
Sam stood beside him and stared across the brilliant white of God’s Saddle. ‘It ain’t thawing over there,’ he said, pointing to his right, ‘and it ain’t thawing over there,’ he said, indicating left.
‘Look, Sam,’ gasped Tom. ‘He’s coming, and he’s fair glowing with the Magic, he is.’
Together they watched as Gorge strode towards them, his footsteps sure on the hard, stone road that now guided his feet to Misthaven.
‘Gorge!’ Sam rushed forward, his arms outstretched. ‘We been waiting for you, all day, we have. Ain’t we Tom?’
Gorge stopped at his approach, his face seeming to glow with the power racing through his body. He stared at Sam for a moment, as if he was trying to remember his name.
Then he smiled, and reached out a hand to touch his old friend. As his fingertips touched Sam’s shoulder, Sam was thrown across the ice, tumbling and yelling as he went.
He came to a stop with a grunt and a groan.
‘What…’ Gorge held up his hands before his face.
‘Gorge! What have you done to Sam?’ Tom rushed across the narrow stone road and back onto the ice, reaching for Sam.
‘I reckon I’ll be fine, if I can get somewhere warm,’ said Sam, as Tom helped him to his feet.
‘Sorry, Sam, I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ Gorge walked closer but he held his hands by his side.
‘So you found it, then?’ asked Tom, being careful to keep his distance.
Gorge frowned. ‘Yes, Tom, I did. But I don’t reckon I know what happened. There were dozens of them, Tom, and they all called to me, and there was this big, enormous one, and that…it was full of Magic, like you wouldn’t believe, and…’
He trailed off then as the memories filled his mind.