Path of Shadows

by Ben Wolf

  “Of course we will do everything we can to ensure Kallie’s safety, but the reality is that Lord Valdis will continue to pursue her as long as he lives. He is pure evil, and I, for one, have made it my mission to stop him once and for all.”

  More silence.

  “Garrick had a second egg,” Kent said to Aeron. “That egg has hatched. Lord Valdis has a dragon, and he can perform the ritual if he gets Kallie back. That is why he continues to pursue her.”

  “What?” Aeron’s heart pounded in his chest. Another egg? “How? Where did it come from?”

  “There were two eggs in the dungeon,” Garrick replied. “I took them both. One was insurance in case something happened, and something did happen.”

  “So you deceived us, too.” Aeron snapped. “And you’re acting all upset about the fact that we didn’t tell you about Kallie being my sister?”

  “We’re even, alright?” Garrick fired back. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it. Maybe I should have. Or maybe we’d all be dead if you’d stuck around and smashed that one, too.”

  “Enough, please,” Kent asserted. “The point is, Garrick and I saw the egg hatch with our own eyes. If Lord Valdis somehow manages to harvest that dragon’s essence, with or without Kallie, I believe the aftermath will be cataclysmic in scale. We must stop him.”

  “I’m in,” Mehta blurted.

  The others looked at him.

  “Since we’re being honest…” He stared at the ground. “…sifting Lord Valdis is the only reason I joined your group in the first place. I needed to get close to him.”

  They all continued to stare at him.

  Perhaps Aeron shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was anyway. “Why?”

  “His soldiers killed my parents and sold me into slavery as a child,” Mehta stated.

  “That’s…” Aeron blinked at him. “That’s how you became…”

  “A Xyonate,” Mehta finished for him. “Yes. I was sold to a Xyonate sect, and they made me what I am. When I abandoned that life and returned here, to my home, I learned about Lord Valdis. His soldiers have harassed my people for decades. The last people to rise up against them were my parents, and they died for it.

  “I knew that if the soldiers came back, I could fight them off, but they’d just return with more. Eventually, they’d send enough to overwhelm me. So I decided to cut off the serpent’s head,” Mehta said. “If I could sift Lord Valdis, then I could save this village from his soldiers for good.”

  Aeron couldn’t argue with his reasoning, but given what they’d faced back at Lord Valdis’s castle, how had Mehta ever expected to succeed?

  Then again, some of the things Mehta could do exceeded Aeron’s wildest imagination. Perhaps Mehta could’ve found a way after all.

  “It was my final commission,” Mehta concluded. “But I failed. Another chance appeals to me—especially if it means helping Kallie.”

  Garrick glowered at him. “So the whole time we were trying to find that map and trying to retrieve that dragon egg, you were just waiting to kill Lord Valdis once we got back?”

  Mehta nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry I kept it from you. From all of you.”

  Aeron couldn’t believe what he was hearing—and more so, he couldn’t believe what it meant. He thought Mehta had helped Kallie escape because he understood what it meant to have a sister and loved ones he cared about.

  But in reality, Mehta had given up his only real chance at saving his own family… to save Aeron’s instead.

  It astounded Aeron, and he didn’t know what to say.

  He knew one thing for sure, though: he didn’t need any apologies from Mehta, ever.

  “How am I supposed to trust you going forward?” Garrick asked.

  “We now want exactly the same thing,” Mehta said. “And if you don’t trust me, then I won’t fault you for it. I certainly don’t deserve it.”

  Whether Garrick trusted Mehta or not, Aeron didn’t care. Mehta had Aeron’s unbreakable, unconditional trust and support from now on. He deserved even more than that.

  Garrick didn’t say anything else. He just folded his arms again and stared at Mehta.

  “So what’s the plan? Do we just head back to Xenthan and try to take down Lord Valdis?” Aeron asked.

  “No,” Garrick replied. “You saw what we’re up against. We can’t just stroll back into that castle. He won’t let that happen.”

  “And even if we did manage to reach him, we could not defeat him using only the weapons and magical abilities now available to us,” Kent said. “He is already too strong and too well-protected.”

  “So what are we talking about, then? How do we do this?” Aeron was confused, and his back was starting to ache.

  After the battle, while searching for Falna and the soldiers, he’d taken a shroom to hold him over, but its effects had already started to wear off. Must’ve been a dud.

  Every now and then, he’d get a shroom that wasn’t as potent. It came with the territory; sometimes the shrooms just didn’t absorb magic as well.

  On the flip side, sometimes the shrooms were extra potent and lasted longer. As a bonus, their other effects heightened, too. Those were definitely his favorites.

  “We must find an ironclad solution,” Kent said. “Otherwise, we will only ensure our own deaths.”

  “So… another quest? Probably something dangerous?” Aeron asked.

  “If you know of a definitive way to kill Lord Valdis, I am ready to hear it,” Kent said.

  Mehta said, “If he’s made of flesh and bone like Lord Glavan was, then all I need is a knife.”

  “Lord Valdis is far stronger,” Garrick said. “Your little knife would never reach him. And even if you did, he’d probably survive anyway.”

  “You’re underestimating what I can do with a knife,” Mehta countered.

  Garrick’s jaw tightened, and he grunted. “The point is, we need to assume he can’t be killed by normal means.”

  “So what do we do?” Aeron asked. “Where do we find something that can kill him? And, possibly, a fully-grown dragon as well?”

  “That is indeed the question,” Kent replied. “I do not know.”

  “I do,” a new voice said from inside the house.

  Mehta’s grandfather stood in the doorway, cloaked in the shadow of the house and leaning on his walking stick. He shut the door behind him and step-thumped his way over to their group.

  “Grandfather?” Mehta asked. “What are you saying?”

  “I know of a place where weapons and magic of great and terrible power may be obtained,” he replied.

  Garrick looked him up and down. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, I’m not.” Grandfather shook his head and gave Garrick a pleasant smile. “I’ve been there.”

  Chapter Nine

  “I wasn’t always the frail shell of a man standing before you,” Grandfather said. “There was a time when I had my share of adventures, some far more exciting and dangerous than others. And one of them, in particular, nearly claimed my life.

  Mehta eyed Grandfather with questions shooting through his mind. He’d had no idea Grandfather had done anything interesting with his life. But then again, Mehta had truly known him for only several days, split between his escape from Sefera and his return from Valdis Keep.

  “You say you need to slay a dragon, right?”

  “Yes,” Kent replied. “And to defeat a powerful dark lord.”

  “Dragons breathe fire, as everyone knows.” Grandfather held up his fist, and Mehta could see the veins bulging on the back of his brown hands, very pronounced due to his age. “A dragon’s core is made of fire. They are magical beasts, and the larger they grow, the larger their core. What can extinguish a core made of fire?”

  “Water,” Garrick said.

  “That is correct…” Grandfather grinned at Garrick. “…though I do not expect you will find any mythical weapons derived from water up here in the mountains.”

  “Ice?” Ae
ron suggested.

  “Yes. Bravo.” Grandfather thumped his walking stick on the ground twice. “Ice.”

  Now Grandfather stood between the four of them, gesticulating and waving his walking stick and rotating to face each of them sporadically as he wove a tale stretching back to his youth. Mehta had never seen him so animated.

  “Some sixty years ago, I was the youngest member of a merchant party traveling north, to the Kuhnleas Ocean. Rather than hauling goods over the mountains to Xenthan, we were taking them to the port city of Obaris in northern Etrijan.” Grandfather pointed at Aeron. “Do you know it?”

  He shook his head, but Garrick spoke up from the other side of the group. “I know it. My clan used to raid that place all the time.”

  “I’m… not entirely sure what to say about that.” Grandfather blinked at him. “Anyway, we were traveling to Obaris along the merchant road when a terrible blizzard befell us. We were forced to abandon our wares and take shelter in a nearby cave where we spent the night.

  “But in the morning, when we woke up, the snow had packed us inside the cave, and we couldn’t get out. We were trapped, destined to perish unless the snow thawed enough to release us…” Grandfather paused and raised his forefinger. “Or unless we could find another way out of that cave.”

  As Grandfather continued his tale, Mehta listened intently, surprised that his grandfather had lived through such an adventure in his youth. But more than anything, it underscored how much Mehta had missed, thanks to his absence over the last several years.

  He touched the triangle-shaped pendant hanging around his neck, a gift from Ferne. It was the symbol of Laeri, the Goddess of Light. He’d tried to give it back to her once he returned home, but she’d insisted he keep it, so he continued to wear it.

  On the other hand, despite all that he’d missed, he’d also experienced much that he never would’ve had the opportunity to experience otherwise. Even though most of those experiences were tethered to death and the ways of the Xyonates, Mehta was still thankful for them.

  Without them, he’d never have this chance—the opportunity to save his family and his village from Lord Valdis… if they could find a way to do it.

  “Deep within that cave,” Grandfather continued, “we found the entrance to an ancient temple, hidden from mankind for centuries. And within that temple, we encountered treasures and wonders beyond our wildest imaginations…” Grandfather paused, “…but also horrors that have haunted my dreams ever since.”

  “Oh, great,” Aeron muttered.

  “I can’t say exactly what came for us, but whatever they were, they doused our fire and dragged many of our number away that night. We called them frostbloods,” Grandfather continued. “With the cave blocked off, and with the frostbloods pursuing us, our only chance at surviving was to venture deeper into the temple in search of a way out.

  “In its deepest recesses, we realized what a profound mistake we had made. Traps and snares and those vile creatures culled more of us, forcing us ever closer to the temple’s heart. It was there that we made a discovery the likes of which I have never seen before or since.”

  It astounded Mehta that Grandfather had endured the kinds of troubles he was describing, and if he were being honest, a part of him didn’t believe it.

  “In the heart of that temple, we discovered a massive forge, but it was made of ice rather than of steel, and emerald flames burned cold in the hearth,” Grandfather said.

  “‘Burned cold?’” Aeron asked.

  Grandfather nodded. “That’s the only way I can possibly describe it. The nearer we got to the emerald flames, the colder the air became. An array of weapons hung from the walls, each of them constructed of ice-blue steel, freezing to the touch and with translucent blades.”

  “Snow steel?” Garrick asked.

  Grandfather shook his head and smiled. “No. Snow steel weapons are potent, but they pale in comparison to ice-forged steel.”

  Garrick scoffed. “That’s impossible. You can’t use ice to forge steel. It would never work.”

  “Gotta say, I agree with Garrick on this one,” Aeron said. “My father’s a blacksmith, and I’ve logged more than my fair share of hours around a proper forge. Metal can’t be shaped without extreme heat.”

  “Or perhaps magic,” Kent added, “though I confess I am ignorant of how such magically imbued weapons are forged.”

  “You’re all correct,” Grandfather said, “but you’re also forgetting one crucial point: We were in a temple. A temple that belonged to a god.”

  “Fjorst?” Skepticism underpinned Garrick’s voice. “You’re trying to tell me you met the God of Ice?”

  “I still do not know what we encountered, but we managed to find a way out of the temple before we lost any more men,” Grandfather replied.

  Garrick rolled his eyes and sighed.

  Mehta wanted to gut him for it.

  “Of our original party of fourteen men, nine perished in the temple and two more succumbed to the cold once we managed to escape. Only three of us survived, and those other two men perished a few years back of old age.

  “We eventually made our way back to our merchant goods, still on the road, untouched. We managed to get them to Obaris, but when we arrived, no one there believed us when we told them what had transpired,” Grandfather said. “They stopped short of accusing us of murder, but we were forbidden to trade in that city ever again.

  “Not long after, I settled here, met my wife, and started a family. The rest, you could say, is history,” Grandfather concluded. “But that temple is still out there, and certainly any weapon forged by a god should be useful in killing Lord Valdis and his dragon.”

  “If it’s real,” Garrick reiterated.

  “I assure you, it is very real,” Grandfather said. “Have you any reason to doubt my sincerity?”

  “No,” Garrick replied. “But I have no reason to believe you, either.”

  “Given everything we have already endured, including all of the absurd and frightening things we have seen,” Kent said, “you somehow find this story implausible?”

  “I didn’t believe dragon eggs still existed, either, and I was proven wrong,” Garrick said. “Don’t mind being proven wrong again, but I don’t want to waste time traveling up north and searching for wherever this cave supposedly is.

  “The next new moon’s in less than a month. If Lord Valdis somehow gets Kallie back or finds another sacrifice, he’ll start his ritual then. We need to kill him before he finds another way to harvest the dragon’s essence. Once he does that, I don’t know if anything can kill him.”

  “I hate to admit it… again… but I agree with Garrick,” Aeron said. “I actually believe the story is true, but unless we have a surefire way to find the temple, get inside, and retrieve something we can definitely use to fight Lord Valdis and his dragon, then I think we need another plan.”

  Mehta looked at his grandfather. “Can you tell us anything else that could help us find the location of the temple?”

  “Tell you?” Grandfather rubbed his chin with his free hand. “I’m afraid not. If I were younger, I would accompany you and show you to the entrance of the cave myself, but alas, my traveling days are far behind me. However, I know of another way to find it.”

  Grandfather held up his walking stick.

  Everyone watched him.

  But he wasn’t moving. He just… stood there.

  Mehta was about to ask him what he was doing, when Grandfather smashed the bottom of the walking stick hard into the frigid ground, twisted it in the center, and then pulled it apart.

  When Mehta saw what was inside the walking stick, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  Grandfather’s story had amused and intrigued Kent, and he’d had no reason to question whether or not it was true. He’d read about such places, and he’d visited an ancient Aletian vault not even a month before. The continent was riddled with secrets and hidden historical sites concealing priceless treasures and ar
tifacts.

  But when Grandfather pulled his walking stick apart and revealed one of those very treasures, the last remnants of doubt melted from Kent’s mind.

  From inside the walking stick, Grandfather extracted a needle-like blade made of light-blue, translucent steel. It had a thin, black handle. Altogether, it was only about as long as Kent’s forearm, but it radiated a pale blue light just a few shades lighter than that of raw magic.

  It was unmistakably unique, a weapon not crafted by human hands. Perhaps the Aletians might’ve been capable of producing something as delicate, yet strong, and born of magic, but Kent had never seen anything like it.

  He’d read about such weapons in various old texts, but they only made rare appearances throughout the various lore and legends inscribed by the ancients. Even then, the authors suggested that the gods kept their powerful weapons close by rather than leaving them lying around for mere mortals to find.

  The sight of this one, small as it was, filled Kent with hope. If Grandfather had indeed seen dozens of weapons like it in the temple, then perhaps one of them could kill Lord Valdis and his dragon.

  Grandfather turned toward Garrick and grinned. “Satisfied?”

  Garrick’s mouth hung open for a moment, then he replied, “Yes.”

  Grandfather held it up for all of them to see.

  “It is a marvelous instrument,” Kent said, “but how will it enable us to find the temple? We cannot rely on one single dagger to fell someone as powerful as Lord Valdis.”

  “When we were trying to escape the temple, one of our number managed to take hold of this on his way out—a mage by the name of LaBorn. He discovered a way to activate the dagger with his magic, and he used it to guide us out.”

  Intellectually, that made a degree of sense, except that Kent had no idea how it worked. “Did he explain how he managed to do that?”

  “LaBorn was one of the two who succumbed to the cold after we escaped. He was badly wounded in the initial attack by the frostbloods. He barely managed to escape at all. In essence, LaBorn sacrificed himself to save the rest of us.”