by BJ Hanlon
To the south the gorge narrowed and there was a soft current flowing from an invisible source. Maybe the sea? Edin did still taste the salt on his lips.
As Edin looked back toward the east and the easiest climb, he noticed a small dark cave at the water line. With the sun glittering off small waves it was hard to see. It reminded him of half an egg laid on its side.
What type of monsters lived in there? The corrinbomon or something like it.
There was no way he was going anywhere near that place.
Edin spotted a small rock-strewn beach about fifty yards to the left of it across at least thirty yards of freezing water. Edin knocked frozen crystals from his boots and bent forward to try to stretch his body out. It was slow and painful.
Despite the cloak, he felt like he was getting sick.
Edin took a breath and checked that his sword was still sheathed. He pulled the fur cloak around him and carefully slipped into the freezing water.
It shocked the body immediately and his mind shattered for a brief moment before he kicked on. He dog paddled again. This time, it went quicker but in the water, the cloak did nothing for the cold.
Edin was concentrating on the pull and kick, his breath was even though shaky. About ten feet away, something happened. At first, he wasn’t quite sure. Edin blinked and the spot he’d been aiming for a moment ago seemed to jump about ten feet to the left.
Then it grew worse. He felt something pulling him. The current, and it was taking him right.
Edin tried to paddle harder but he could do nothing to continue forward. The surface seemed calm but it was as if the cave were inhaling him. Edin’s heart raced but he felt powerless. Edin tried to concentrate on the water and controlling it. But his concentration was sapped by the cold.
The current pushed him closer and near a gray boulder. Edin reached for it but his arms slammed off it like they were dead logs.
Edin’s pulse raced as he moved toward the cavern like an ant in a mug of cider about to be drunk.
The sun disappeared and he was swept inside the darkening cavern. Brackish water flowed around him with black stalactites poking down like teeth from the ceiling. He waited for the moment when the jaw would shut and swallow him. The thought of an ant came back.
Then he saw something to the right near the cave wall.
A round post, a pylon, sticking out from the water. Edin angled toward it and tried kicking. He approached, but the water was too fast and he missed.
Then turning into the darkness, he barely made out something rushing toward him. There was a flat shelf that looked too smooth to be natural.
Edin threw his arms up to brace himself but it barely worked. His body crashed into the stone and he cracked his hip into the rock. The same one that took the sled.
But in that instant, Edin threw his arms up and found something solid and sturdy sticking out. Edin wrapped his wrist around it and scrambled his feet against the flat wall. Panic poured down his head and his body stung as if it were being attacked by swarms of hornets.
Then he got his torso out and over. Edin rolled his legs out of the water and onto his back and lay panting on the cold stone surface. He shivered as a gust burst through the cavern. Edin closed his eyes and curled up.
He was stiff and sore and somehow still alive.
“Move…” he chattered but his body was slow to respond to his will. It wanted to stay in this ball and rest. He continued telling himself to move.
Finally, a leg responded by slowly kicking out, followed by the other. He turned himself over and peeled his body from the stone surface.
A moment later, he began coughing. His throat felt like coarse sandpaper and his chest was like a tenderized flank steak.
After heaving, he was able to look around. The flat rock was twenty feet long or more and about ten wide. The small hunk of stone Edin had found to pull himself out of the water looked almost like a dock cleat.
There were scraps of old wood lying around the small dock. Edin shuddered, wondering why he didn’t learn the spell for fire.
As he stood he noticed a black hole on a flat rear wall. He reached out a hand and summoned a small ethereal light.
For a moment, he was blinded and then a doorway appeared but no door was visible. This was manmade. A hidden dock inside a fjord…
Edin shuffled closer to it, his wet boots sloshing with every step. Edin shivered as he touched the cold granite wall. It was rough but flat. Edin stepped inside and was hit by the smell of ancient dust.
Then he sneezed. It was so hard his head flung forward nearly taking him off his feet. After balancing himself, he began to move further in and entered a room that was arched at the roof. There were no lines, no tool marks or symbols of any kind. It was as if it were hewn from the sheer stone.
Edin tugged the cloak tighter around him when he noticed it was dry. Completely dry.
“Mountain spirit fur?” Edin wondered. He’d like to have seen that thing… maybe.
The air wasn’t much warmer, but the breezes were blocked by the walls. He needed to get out of the wet under clothes. In slow, deliberate movements, he took everything off, threw it in a pile before redressing in just the cloak. Hopefully the Foci wouldn’t think he was disrespecting their gift. Heck, he doubted he’d ever tell them.
The shivering slowed and his body began to feel warm, except his feet which were still on the cold stone floor.
At the far end was a double door made of thick stone. One part still hung from hinges with the other lying on the ground like a corpse. Around the ground were shattered and cracked wooden barrels or crates. At least he thought it was wood. A black and rotting goo seemed to spread from it with a ghastly odor.
There was no writing on the walls, no heraldry or carvings. It was as if whoever created this wanted to be forgotten.
Through the broken doors, he entered a rotunda. A circle of marble columns held up a balcony above him and at the center of the room, on a smooth and nearly polished stone floor, was the first symbol he’d seen. A chisel and a hammer crossed at the shafts.
Stone masons? Edin thought as he stumbled to the center. Edin looked up and saw a dome that seemed perfect and dizzying. He half expected an oculus at its apex but there was nothing but geometrical shapes.
The balcony above was ringed with a white stone balustrade that looked foreign somehow, like the columns. Opposite the way he entered, Edin spotted another doorway. As he moved near it, he spotted a piece of cloth on the ground.
Bending down he rubbed it between his fingers. Cotton. Edin turned it around, it was a dark color and didn’t feel that old and...
Edin’s eyes opened wide. There was blood on it. One edge was torn and covered in a sheen of blood.
How long ago was this from? Edin wondered. Was this the place from the expedition of Rihkar and his men?
Edin let it fall to the floor and went through the door and up the stairs beyond. The air grew warmer and he began to feel almost normal. Then he sneezed.
Maybe not. Edin thought.
The stairs curved. They were long and low, about half the height Edin was used to. After a half-circle, Edin came out above the broken doors.
There were short doorways at the cardinal points to his position. He found odd rooms through hallways with dusty and crumbled objects. A rusted metal piece could’ve been a belt buckle or a million other things. He found a stone circle that had a wide and squat face on it but no words.
What is this place? There was nothing to use here. Everything had turned into an unknown. Everything decayed to its most basic beginning.
There were fireplaces ornately carved with vines or roots, though they seemed blockier than any natural plant. If there had been wood inside it was long gone.
Across from him were switchback stairs that didn’t stop for at least three flights both ways. This hall must’ve taken up the whole of this rock formation.
At the top was a stone door that stood partially open. Beyond it was a copy of
the room below with one exception. From the balcony directly above him, came natural light.
Edin blinked and followed a staircase to the right up to the top. A window appeared in front of him and through it, the vast sea opened. The dark blue ocean was dotted with great icebergs and white foamy waves.
Far away, streams of water sprayed into the air as black whales crested the surface. There wasn’t a feeling of the frigid outdoors anywhere in the room.
Edin moved forward and reached out to the window and touched what at first felt like glass but then he realized it wasn’t.
He wrapped his knuckles on it and was surprised to hear the twang of a thin sheet of metal. A transparent metal window? That was new. Something Dorset would probably find interesting.
Then, his mind went back to his friends. Where were they? Was Berka keeping his word not to let harm to come to the scholar? Where were Yechill and the dogs? Did they flee? Where they still out there?
He had to know… Edin turned around and saw a door across the way from the window. It was closed and etched on it, Edin could make out what looked like a mountain spewing fire.
As he reached the door, Edin drew his sword. He took a deep breath and pulled the metal ring that hung from the front. It opened smoothly and easily as if it were just oiled.
Inside was a dark tunnel. Edin summoned the ethereal light and began forward, his bare feet comfortable against warm stone.
It took about two minutes before the corridor stopped at a large slab of stone. The chisel and hammer were carved in it above the fiery mountain. Another door probably. He searched for a ring or some knob to open it. There was nothing. After a moment, he thought of the stone cavern in the Great Cliff and pressed his hands against the symbols. For a moment he was sure something was happening.
Then nothing.
If it was a door, he couldn’t get out this way and unless he wanted another dip in that freezing water, he couldn’t get out anyway.
Edin turned back toward the long hall and leaned against the slab. He slowly slid down before he heard a click.
It shuddered through him and a moment later, he fell backward. His butt landed hard on the frozen ground and bright light blinded him. Sunlight.
Edin blinked at sun. His head was hit by a cold breeze but it didn’t freeze him.
As he rose he saw he was on a small land bridge with deep gorges to either side. The spot where he fell from, notated by the huge gouge in the rock wall was some hundred yards across the open water. On the other side, it was a bay with a narrow channel into the ocean.
Across the land bridge, he saw a tall thin stone spire. It took a few moments but he began to notice things that didn’t look natural.
Firstly and most obvious, a stone staircase.
Edin took a step before his toes touched the icy stone. His boots and his clothes were down below. He’d need them if he was going to check it out.
Edin spent time retrieving them and laying them out in the warmest room he could find. A room with crumbled and moldy wood. It would take a while to dry so he curled up in his cloak and tried to sleep.
His dreams were fluid in a way that seemed both real and unreal. He remembered something, someone running through a dark, underground hall.
Edin woke to a massive rumbling in his stomach. For a moment, he was in complete darkness until he summoned his ethereal light. He checked the clothes and found them dry enough and made it outside as it was closing in on night. There were gray clouds floating up toward him from the southwest. He looked back toward the fallen stones.
Where were Yechill and the dogs? Were they still over the other side of the wall?
Yechill had the food and water and warm supplies… but what if he saw Edin fall? He could’ve figured Edin had died and left. Especially with the wyrm circling.
Edin wanted to call out but what if the beast was still there?
Edin started forward toward the stairs to the spire. He looked at them, short and squat and there was a small half-wall that went to his chest. As he inspected it, he realized that by looking at it from the outside, the stairs were camouflaged.
Edin began climbing again and trying to look over the broken cliff to the west. There was no sign of Yechill. He continued until the stairs stopped with a circular rampart. In one small nook of the wall, practically invisible, Edin found a closed door. But there was no handle and no way in.
Edin even leaned his back against it and slid. It didn’t work.
Another stair led up and around again. He found three more thin ramparts with camouflaged doors. At the top, he finally found a point where he could see over the far stone cliff to where Yechill and the dogs had been. There was no sign of them.
After a few minutes of catching his breath, he screamed for them but received no response. He saw no smoke, no sign of life, though he could see the edge of the gorge where they’d cowered…
They were gone and he was stuck here.
After a while he glanced back up to the peak, it was still a hundred or so feet above him. What was up there?
It wasn’t a castle exactly but it was like the ocean was a moat. To the rear of the spire there was a long gray stone plateau that simply dropped into the ocean a hundred yards away.
This was some ancient place, maybe an ancient refugee… but for who? And where was the Rage Stone?
The diary said Rihkar climbed the cliffs to a tower but how could he tell this was a tower?
Edin wondered and looked out toward the sea. Then he noticed it.
Standing on the cliff edge, Edin saw a circular tower. It was above the tunnel he’d come out of and overlooking the sea. There was a long flat plateau that ran to it. Even in the moonlit skies, he could see that was the tower from the dream.
Edin stared for a few moments. He was a few hundred yards above it. Was the stone in there? It had to be… unless Rihkar found the stone and sailed off with it. But Orange K and the sailors mutinied and left him.
A thought came, Rihkar could still be here, couldn’t he? Edin thought of the bloody cloth down below. How long would they have been here? How could they have survived?
Edin drew his sword and began climbing again. He sneezed and wiped his runny nose on the sleeve. Another slight against the Foci’s magic cloak he imagined.
The sun was gone as the stairs grew narrower and steeper and finally he reached a flat thick wall on the northern side of the spire. It was a door made of a mesmerizing stone mural of ancient monsters, squat men with great beards and hammers, and thin elves fighting a giant battle.
As he approached the door, he heard a shriek. A head splitting and pulse pounding shriek that sent Edin to the ground. He tried to move, tried to see anything but couldn’t.
The wyrm.
Something reached out and snatched him by the collar. Edin was yanked toward the door as he screamed still stuck in that blurred white headspace.
Then, the sound ceased as if someone had blown out a candle. He smelt tobacco and must and heard movement around him.
It took Edin a moment to open his eyes. He was in a small antechamber lit by torches that burned with no smoke. The room was decorated with gold walls and tall monuments of squared off men. Squared off midgets actually, Edin thought.
Movement caught his eye. Edin turned toward the spot and saw a man, grizzled and hunched in the corner like a mongrel.
Dark eyes stared at him from behind thin and scraggly hair. His mouth opened and snapped shut with a smack.
Edin’s heart raced, there was something wild and crazy in those eyes. Something inhuman.
He moved slowly toward his sword. It was gone. He remembered pulling it… did he drop it when the wyrm cried? Edin glanced back toward the door and saw it was closed.
“Who are you?” Edin asked.
The man winced and turned his head away burying it between his forearms.
Then the man’s head began to shake violently. Creepily. He leapt to his feet and sprinted through the door to an inner cham
ber.
“Wait!” Edin shouted then he spotted his sword near the closed door. He shook off whatever the remaining effects of the wyrm’s cry were and snatched it. A moment later, he was chasing the man. His cloak whipped behind him. He followed the sound of the feet around a golden alter of a squat man holding a large hammer and chisel above his head.
The man raced through a door to the left of the statue. Edin followed into a hall and found small, flameless torches burning in sconces. The hall was a curved ramp that headed down.
Despite his throbbing body, Edin chased. His feet felt loose and confused and he stumbled into a sconce and knocking it over.
He got up and continued. After a half a minute or so, the ramp levelled off past an open door with lights. Glancing in, he saw another wide, rotund room. Edin paused quickly to listen for the footsteps.
The sounds were faint behind his pounding heart and gasping breath, but they seemed to be ahead still.
Edin ran on, the spiraling tower taking wider circles except for a short flat span before another open room. The whole of the spire was a façade. This wasn’t a natural landmass; it was a building.
He continued down further and further until his legs could barely rise. Edin slumped to the wall for a few moments and then had to crawl to the next room.
Edin entered the dark space. There were no windows and the place smelled like oiled metal. He stumbled inside the door and leaned against a wall.
His mouth felt dry though he left his waterskin… with the sled. He hadn’t drank anything in almost a day.
He wished there’d been snow on the ground… but then again he could summon water, couldn’t he? There had to be moisture in the air.
Edin closed his eyes and felt for it. Small beads of water began appearing. He felt them merging into something more substantial he reached out a hand and called for the beads to approach him. Edin opened his palms and let the water form in them. He took a drink. It was cold and held a funny, metallic taste but it helped.
Edin let his head back against the stone wall and shut his eyes. After a few minutes, the room lit up behind his eyelids. In front of him, windows opened offering a great wide-open view of the southern sky. It took up nearly half of the humongous room’s wall.