by Paul Drewitz
The breeze picked up as the winds of the four corners rushed in, drawn by the wizard’s command. In the center of the tavern they seemed to clash, a huge impact twisting together in an upward spiral, picking the wooden building up and scattering pieces of the tavern.
“Now,” Erelon stated, addressing the distraught proprietor, “If you rebuild, I’d suggest that maybe you be more hospitable to all who travel. You never know who you might be having for a guest.”
Erelon tugged at the reins of Draos, leading him from the village, Fresmir not far behind.
Fresmir had again taken the lead as he knew where they were going. Up into the mountains. Higher with thinner air. More rocks, shorter grass, cooler springs, these were the characteristics that Erelon had seen before.
Erelon had stopped at a few towns, going in alone, buying supplies and searching for news, especially about his blunder at the village. A few were agitated by the wizard’s actions; others felt he was justified. Still, many did not care or were too afraid to give their opinion. Many others were so terrified by the wizard's mangled appearance they refused to speak to him.
One day they overlooked the capitol, Samos, and the next they were looking down steep falls to death. With the barrel he had taken from the tavern empty, Fresmir cut it loose and watched it drop, bouncing a couple times against the mountain wall before breaking into pieces. It was like many of the other mountains Erelon had traveled through, although for as far north as Erelon could see, there was nothing except the peaks of mountains. The stories Erelon had always heard was that the Northern Hemisphere was covered in mountains and that it was inhabitable to all except trolls, giants, and wild beasts.
Erelon began to realize that they were in country that Fresmir knew well. Erelon saw nothing except iron stone, but Fresmir always found plants for the horses to eat and water for drinking and wood for a fire.
Fresmir first opened about his feelings while they sat in a bowl, protected from the cold winds. A creek was nearby, its gurgling audible, and a small fire used a gnarled tree to cast weird shadows.
“You know,” he started talking to no one, “It was from such people that hated us that we received the name Brect. Some say it means witch’s pet, others a most wretched race. It doesn’t matter. We bear the name like a badge of pride. To prove ourselves, to show we can stand up in the face of prejudice, hate, persecution.”
That was all. Fresmir went completely quiet. He did not speak another word, but instead flopped below his blankets and, breathing hard, fell to sleep. Erelon simply lay watching the fire as his vision blurred and the flames became a vibrating dancing blob, darkened, and disappeared.
They were both awake early, the sun barely outlining the tips of the peaks. It seemed as if the scent that Fresmir followed grew stronger as they traveled, and the knowledge that they grew closer to their destination made the Brect more eager to arrive. They pushed their horses harder, were up earlier, and on the trail longer. As they traveled deeper into the mountains, they almost seemed to leave the steep narrow trails behind, traveling instead through valleys, paths that went between the peaks instead of high up on their walls.
The paths were numberless. They formed a giant maze, in which a traveler could easily become lost for years and die without ever seeing another man. A few times a low growl gurgled and echoed down the mountains, making Draos shift nervously.
The danger of the country through which Erelon traveled did not really enter his mind until one afternoon as they were cutting through a valley, and Fresmir whispered anxiously, “Quickly follow me.”
Erelon chased Fresmir’s beast into a thicket and pulled Draos to the ground. Fresmir had pulled his crossbow, and Erelon already had his long bow clutched in one hand before he saw what had caused Fresmir to take cover. Three trolls lumbered through the valley. Their stench filled the area, almost as if a cloud surrounded their presence. They hummed some guttural tune as they swung their legs.
A rock bigger than Draos crashed into the chest of the third troll. A giant leaped down from above, a crude club crashing into the skull of the first troll, dropping him fast. The center troll became the recipient of several spears made from the trunks of young trees. They were thrown through the air. Huge, crude, spears that bludgeoned the flesh of the troll as it penetrated. Its flesh seemed to explode. The third troll rolled to his feet. Other giants came from the rocks and stepped up to the troll. They stood close and executed him, driving the spears, little more than honed trees, through its body until it crumpled. Repeatedly the spears continued, in and out, long after the troll's nerves had ceased twitching.
Quickly the giants began to loot the bodies, and though it only took a few moments, to Erelon it seemed an eternity. Giants were supposed to be his allies, yet he did not wish to risk showing his presence to giants on the path of war.
This was the country of giants and trolls. Erelon had not been invited; his presence was not known; he was not being escorted by giants; and they might take him for an enemy before he had a chance to explain who he was.
As the giants passed from the valley, Fresmir was on his horse, quickly explaining, “Other trolls may come looking for their brethren. When they see their brothers dead, hell will explode.”
Both Fresmir and Erelon raced from the valley, leaving the dead trolls behind. Both travelers turned to a blur, a streak through the mountains. Not until the sun began to set did Fresmir pull his horse up to a slower gait. The air was thinner and both horses were breathing heavy. Fresmir led into another thicket.
“No fire. We’re deep in troll country. They’ll already be able to smell us quick enough without us lighting a beacon to guide them.”
The temperatures dropped until water froze. Both men slept close to their horses, covering in all the clothes and blankets they packed, and still they shivered constantly. As morning rose, their joints were stiff, almost frozen. It took a few minutes to warm their muscles. Fresmir even lit a small fire, and they heated coffee and warmed their hands.
Stomping the fire, Fresmir said, “We’ll reach the site by noon.”
They started at an easy pace, warming their horses and then gently increasing the gait to a swift walk. The morning was cool, still Erelon sweated below his robes. Before noon he was already stripping robes and rolling them before stashing them into his pack.
The sun looked straight down on top of the two travelers when Fresmir pulled to a stop. After taking many narrow trails and passing into cracks that looked no more than dead ends, they finally stood before a shrine buried in brush and overgrowth. It followed a circular architectural plan with a spire in the center that weaved a path through the sky as it grew upward, held down by chains. Four rectangular prongs grew from the main circle. Vines and arches were carved from the stone, and Humban runes decorated the surface.
A pillar sat before it. Erelon grabbed a hatchet and, for a moment, worked on clearing vines, being careful not to strike the stone surface.
As vines fell away, the wizard let out a gasp, “One of the Humban corners of the world.”
“Yeah,” the Brect commented, “Meltrose. You see it’s been a secret long kept by my race.”
“A secret you should keep only to yourself. You should not have even shown me,” Erelon said still in awe as he gazed towards the ancient structure.
The Brect continued as if he had not heard a word the wizard had uttered, “Occasionally the members of my race make a pilgrimage to see the four corners of the world, just to check on them. It is said that the Humbas created us after they destroyed the wraiths. We were made as a fusion of wraith and animal so that the world of the wraiths would never completely disappear. There were four lines to my race, and it is rumored that when one member of each line is present at each corner, a power will be unleashed.”
Here the Brect paused and touched a pillar at one of the corners. Slowly, from where his hand touched the rock, the runes began to glow orange until an entire quarter of the shrine was lit.
; “None of us know what that power is, and none will ever know as one of the lines has been forever lost to this world. One time here at Meltrose, there were three members represented, one for each line, and we powered three quarters of the shrine. Music and light filled the valley; a feeling of tranquility filled us. It was beautiful,” the Brect sighed with regret.
“The wraiths you fight offered that if I killed one wizard named Erelon, they would bring back the fourth line,” the Brect smiled as he looked towards the wizard, who had slowly begun to draw Rivurandis. Erelon felt the hair raise on his back. He did not know how powerful, how dangerous the Brect was. Erelon was not ready for another fight, and without Fresmir, he would be quite lost in the mountains.
Erelon felt the power of Chaucer already slipping into his veins as his fingers lightly touched the sword when the Brect finished his comment, “But the fourth line was annihilated for reasons many of my race have forgotten, but I have not. I have no wish to bring them back.”
They eyed each other for a moment, and then Fresmir added, “Feel free to look around. We’ll stay here for the day to rest. The few trolls and giants that do know of this place fear and avoid it. We’ll be safe here.”
The wizard looked the other creature over for a moment, trying to sense if there was any dishonor in the Brect's actions, any secretive agenda. But the wizard could feel no deceit in the Brect's mind or his comments, so he turned his attention to the artifact. Erelon wondered if maybe this relic was a good example of how King's Time once might have been decorated. The runes represented the stars, moons, and sun and their cycles through space and time. Erelon crawled through all the different arches, around the pillars. He looked at the chains that held down the main center levitating stone. The steel of the chains looked immaculate, as if they had been just forged by a dwarve the week before. There was absolutely no rust eating at the steel's surface, no pitting, no trace of a seem in any of the links.
Erelon carefully inspected the stone. Looking for some sign of the spell used to levitate the center stone. Such a spell, such a rune that could hold up a stone so massive that several giants and trolls would be unable to lift it, would give Erelon an insight into the ancient races power that no other document ever had. But none of the carvings, the runes, corresponded to any spell. They told stories, outlined the movements of the stars, the moons, the sun, but no more. Erelon was even confused by one instance where a rune alluded to the existence of two suns. But his quick study revealed nothing significant to the wizard.
Outside of the shrine’s perimeter, Fresmir had started a fire and gone to sleep. Erelon watched and thoroughly investigated. Yet without the time to translate the runes and compare it all to star charts and other documents and ponder all of what he read, Erelon could never know the full potential of the site. But maybe that would be for the best. Leave hidden and in the past what should stay there.
They left early in the morning, passing through the valley, taking a path different from the one they came in.
“This should lead back to the mountain’s edge and the forest that lines its feet,” Fresmir assured the wizard.
The path Fresmir picked led through more valleys. Then it took a gradual descent and never looked back up. The wizard thought that it was going to lead them into the earth below its crust, but it leveled out, and after a few days, near dusk, they finally stepped out from a crack in the mountain wall and into a forest. There was no real path other than the one they made for themselves by choosing a route with the thinnest brush. A few moments and Fresmir chose a thick mass of brush and found a way inside. He dropped off his horse and started unsaddling, making a camp.
“There are still trolls and giants in these woods. They are still unfriendly, and just so you know, we got lucky in those mountains. I’ve been in them and had to race around trying to find an exit. I’ve seen whole regiments of adventurers and soldiers in those mountains looking for anything from gold to a quest. And I’ve seen them destroyed.”
The Brect had become serious. Fresmir was poking a small fire with a stick, stirring it, causing embers to float into the air.
“When we get a little further south there will be a few evergreens and some more gangling ironwood trees. You’ve heard the rumors and stories about this wood?” Fresmir asked, looking at the wizard who nodded his head, “Good. Then I don’t have to explain, and you know to be careful.”
"So the legends are true?" Erelon wanted to know.
"True enough to make a man cautious," Fresmir answered.
The fire went out, and the forest went black. Something chirped and croaked. A few leaves in the trees rustled as a fast-moving creature rushed through, and then the forest went completely dead.
Fresmir kept becoming more anxious as his nose poked into the trail ahead. His eyes pried into the forest and kept looking upward through the trees. His mind was often further ahead than that of the horse he rode. There seemed to be no end to the trunks of the forest. They continued on, unbroken by any barren hill or valley, though Erelon did not feel the pressure that drove Fresmir onward at a hurried pace, anxiously looking through the trees for something that he had not warned Erelon about.
A small circle, where trees did not grow and the open sky was dotted by clouds skipping by, could be seen. A giant rock rose from the center.
“Here is where we will stop for the day and rest all tomorrow,” Fresmir said, all anxiety seeming to fall from his shoulders.
Erelon looked at the Brect for a moment, curiosity filling his mind. This was odd behavior for his companion. It was too early to quit traveling, and why were they not going to travel tomorrow?
But Erelon did not voice his questions. Experience had taught the wizard that to observe and listen would be better. So Erelon helped the Brect set up a makeshift camp and then leaned up against the rock, watching the day pass as the bright blue sky began to darken, turn to black, and fade in with the trees. The fire outlined a few of the closest tree trunks, almost like pillars holding up a black roof filled with bright spots. Neither moon appeared, leaving the world dismal, good for those who lived and worked by night. Fresmir was already asleep as Erelon sat writing in his journal. It required an interesting mix of silver ink when no moon existed; the blind could have written better than Erelon did that night.
Slowly the journal slipped from his weakening fingers, a long line of ink cutting across the pages.
Erelon woke with horrible pains shooting through all his muscles as he had slept in a slouched position against the rock. His head had been cocked backward and to one side against the cold rock that penetrated his muscles, freezing his body. The wizard rolled to his knees before using the rock to help him to his feet. Every muscle screamed as Erelon forced them to contract.
Erelon stumbled over to the fire and poured a cup of coffee that was thick and chunky, like mud. The wizard blankly looked at it for a moment, as if debating whether to drink it or not, and then finally put the cup to his lips and let some of it slide down his throat. Fresmir’s bed was empty, the blankets lay where they had been thrown back. Erelon looked around for a moment, enjoying the morning off. Both horses were rolling in the grass, filling their manes with briers and dirt. Erelon slowly wandered around the rock, watching a few birds pass above the clearing and a couple rabbits race through.
On the other side of the rock, Fresmir was prostrated on the ground. Erelon grunted and whispered to himself, “Religious thing,” before turning back toward the camp.
Erelon had just finished coffee and a small breakfast of dried meat and biscuits when the Brect came around the corner. Dropping to the ground, Fresmir pulled a bottle of water from his pack, scented and sweetened with something similar to honey.
“A religious thing?” Erelon asked.
Fresmir shook his head and replied, “It is a custom among the members of my race to pick one day to meditate. Today is my day. All day long, five hours of meditation and then fifteen minutes of off time, but only if needed. Always the morni
ng facing east and the afternoon facing west. We search the world using our minds. We are clairvoyant, remember? One never knows what they will find.”
The Brect disappeared and that was the last Erelon heard from him that day. Erelon for several hours sat with his legs crossed, meditating. At one moment the wizard became so entranced that his body began levitating. Erelon’s mind probed the dark corners of the world, sometimes successfully uncovering what lay hidden, at other moments being fought off, the amount of distance from his query having a direct impact on his result.
His mind passed over a camp of trolls. They had buried their brothers that the giants had killed. Now they were mourning, but already several were arousing themselves and sharpening the trunks of trees for spears or tying giant rocks to logs for use of clubs. Erelon's mind drifted over to the witch nearby, the witch of the Crescent Moon. The fortress hid in a fog. The flying city just beyond was filled with so many magical minds and voices that Erelon's mind became cluttered and his thoughts disjointed. Quickly he jerked his mind out of the city, allowing it to drift across the Desert of Fire where a large, lonely beast crept across.
Slowly he came from his meditation. Erelon’s eyes opened. The sky was already turning black, and Fresmir still had yet to return. Erelon just lay there, silent, quiet, no thought entering or leaving his mind. Slowly his eyelids dropped, but he was already unconscious before they closed.
Erelon awoke as the first rays began to highlight the trees. Fresmir lay asleep, and Erelon left him, knowing that he had been awake in meditation for twenty-four hours, and though meditation was supposed to be relaxing, it could easily absorb energy. It could become extremely exhausting.
The wizard roped the horses and saddled and packed both before starting a small fire. Grabbing a bucket, Erelon walked into the forest and followed the sound of running water. A little stream appeared at his feet. He knelt down, letting the cool water drift between his fingers. Picking up random smooth oval stones and letting them drip, he observed the change in the stream’s ripples and the short burst of brown fog as mud was disturbed and caught by the streams flow and carried away, replaced by clear water. A few small fish, minnows, went dashing by, small blue and silver streaks.