He would ask his friend what the matter was after the ceremony, but the main part of the devotions was about to begin and the young Forest Guardian concentrated on the upcoming ritual. The next part was why they had remained for so long in the village.
Jegral called forward those who had completed their fifteenth winter and requested them to lay their hand on the triangular stone in the middle of the altar while they pronounced the oath of the THREE, through which they became fully fledged members of the Deepstone community. This part of the tradition was still apparently important enough to be retained this year even though no Paladin was to be chosen. Today there were three girls and one boy, and as they stood at the front, they kept glancing over at the guests of honour.
One after the other they placed their hand on the gods’ Stone and spoke the ritual words, and then they sat down again. Ahren couldn’t help holding his breath although it was clear to him that nothing would happen. When he had touched the stone the previous year, there had been an almighty flash of light – the long-forgotten sign that identified the future Thirteenth Paladin. Ahren shook off the sense of unreality that gripped him. So much has happened since then and yet it’s been only a year, he thought to himself in amazement.
Then Jegral summoned the guests of honour up to the front and bowed low before them. Uldini and Jelninolan to the left and right of the gods’ Stone and placed their fingertips on it so that they could replenish their energy on this day of the gods. The elf in her bright green garment, which also today had the addition of white lace and an equally bright scarf, looked like the slim, hauntingly beautiful and graceful counterpart to the bald, black-robed and almost bored looking Arch Wizard, who floated in an almost careless manner beside the altar and was pulling a disinterested grimace.
Keeper Jegral came to the end of his long litany concerning the gods, and Uldini’s face came to life. He and Jelninolan closed their eyes and quietly moved their lips while the stone under their hands began to pulse a deep green, which caused an astonished murmur among the congregation. Every time the stone lit up, the two Ancients seemed to blossom further, to become stronger and more upright. The gods’ Stone pulsed a warm green more than a dozen times before the light disappeared and the two conjurers opened their eyes. The green light appeared again in their eyes and once again a murmur went through the crowd. Then the effect vanished, and the chapel was still again when Uldini and Jelninolan each stretched out a hand and gestured Ahren to come forward.
The apprentice was unusually nervous although his experience had been considerably worse the previous year. Yet somehow this strange reliving of the last Spring Festival really got under his skin. The previous year he had had no idea of what lay in front of him, but this time it felt as if his participation meant accepting any tasks that would be required of him in the future. These thoughts were flashing through his mind as he approached the gods’ Stone and looked down at the unadorned artefact lying there innocently and harmless, and yet which had turned Ahren’s world on its head. He stretched out his right hand, and Uldini muttered in a low voice. Ahren gave him a questioning look.
‘Better use both hands. Let’s err on the side of caution so we won’t have to come back next year.’ And he wiggled his ears to such an extent that Ahren had to giggle in a most unceremonious manner.
Then he drew a deep breath and placed both his hands on the stone.
There was light everywhere.
Ahren could hear and see nothing other than a penetrating whiteness that seemed to be burning into the very centre of his existence. For a brief moment Ahren thought he saw three enormous sleeping silhouettes, which were radiating an incredible power. Ahren thought he recognised a human, an elf and a dwarf, but then the light was gone and Ahren was blinking in the warm light of the spring sunshine which was blazing through the chapel windows. Disorientated, Ahren looked around and could see that everyone else had been as blinded by the light as he. Yet he couldn’t recognise the deep reverence that filled him at that moment in their faces, and he was sure that he had been the only one who had seen the three figures in the light.
Uldini gave him a knowing smile, and Jelninolan embraced him quickly. Then the three returned to their places and Keeper Jegral, who had been visibly moved, solemnly brought the ceremony to an end. Likis and Falk embraced the apprentice heartily and everything was perfect – apart from Khara’s murderously offended look, which still puzzled Ahren.
‘Did I really see the gods earlier?’ whispered Ahren to Falk in disbelief as they sat down at one of the long tables that had been set up outside on the village square.
Falk nodded thoughtfully and murmured: ‘In fact, that should have happened during your Naming. We think it was blocked by your other visitor that night.’ Falk was referring to the attack by HIM, WHO FORCES, who had mentally attacked Ahren in the middle of the Naming Ceremony. It was only thanks to Tlik’s self-sacrifice that Ahren had been able to escape from the sorcerous grip of the dark god. He alone had enabled them to flee once the ritual had been completed.
‘So, you also saw them at your Naming?’ asked Ahren enthusiastically. It had been an overpowering experience, and the fact that his master had also been privy to the vision of the gods connected him even closer to the old man, who had been his mentor for three years by now.
‘The one and only time’, responded Falk in a rapt voice. ‘All Paladins experience this. It’s something that connects us all and gives us strength in the darkness.’
Then he raised his voice to its normal volume. ‘Congratulations on achieving your sixteenth winter, Ahren’ he said in a formal voice and shook his hand vigorously. In no time at all the young man was surrounded by well-wishers, and Ahren recognised the self-satisfied look on Falk’s face. His tactic for escaping the situation had worked. Falk hated emotional moments, and now he was chuckling, relieved that he had got out of this particular one.
Likis pushed his way in front of Ahren and they both congratulated each other. The slight young man had been standing beside him when the stone had chosen Ahren, and the apprentice was glad he could share this day with his friends once again. Holken, Likis, Khara and himself quickly sought out a table in a secluded corner and huddled together although Khara still refused to look at him. Ahren decided to ignore the girl for the time being. Today was his last chance to be with his friends, whereas he would have plenty of time on the journey to calm down Khara. She gave him a chilly look and at that moment Ahren reckoned that that the following few weeks would be far from easy.
Something must have retired into his mouth to die, and it seemed to him as if Trogadon was using his head as target practice for his mighty hammer blows. There was no other explanation for the sensations that were engulfing him as he woke up with a groan. He remembered that Holken had somehow managed to lay his hands on several bottles of mead during the course of the feast day and they had got stuck into them over the following few hours. At some point Khara, on whom the mead had no effect, suggested a fiendishly complicated drinking game, and Ahren had only a hazy memory of anything that happened afterwards. There was something about having to hit one thing with another thing, and if you missed, you had to drink. Something like that. The more he thought about it, the more his head hurt. He opened his eyes in an effort to distract himself, regretted his mistake immediately and closed them quickly when the pounding headache inside his skull multiplied itself many times at the sight of daylight.
He heard whining beside him and he reached out a hand. He could feel the familiar fur under his fingers. So Culhen was lying right beside him. The wolf reacted by sending powerful waves of annoyance and grief back to Ahren. Bold Ahren, he said in the young man’s head, and the tone of voice was exactly the same as what the young man used in the forest when he was scolding the wolf.
Ahren curled up into a ball as he began to feel nauseous, and he made every effort to hold onto the contents of his stomach. If he were to throw up now, his head would explode completely.
&
nbsp; Sorry, big lad, was the message he laboriously sent back, and he tried to sense his friend’s condition. Culhen was clearly suffering his master’s pain too, although to a lesser degree. The apprentice felt guilty that he was putting the animal through this, but once he realised that he felt better when he concentrated on Culhen’s imagination, he stayed for a while in the wolf’s head and enjoyed the alleviation of his own pain. Culhen was calming down too now that he, for his part, wasn’t receiving so much suffering from Ahren.
Ahren was just considering the possibilities that this discovery presented when directly beside his ear a marching band began to play.
At least that’s what it sounded like when Falk called out: ‘So this is where you’ve been hiding. What don’t you come out of there so that people can get their furniture back? A Paladin of the gods who makes a child’s fort out of the feast day tables isn’t exactly an impressive sight if you get my drift.’
Despite his pounding head, Ahren opened his eyes and forced himself to keep them open. The pain was a little more bearable thanks to his concentrating on Culhen’s thoughts, but logical thinking had become more difficult. All around him he saw upturned tables and benches that had been formed into a makeshift circle with him in the middle. Some of the longer tables had been stacked in such a way that they formed half a roof. The upper half of Falk could be seen through an opening in the structure. Behind his master Ahren could see the old oak tree which dominated the village square and had formed the fulcrum around which the festivities had taken place. Ahren gathered himself together for a moment and was about to answer Falk when he spotted, much to his irritation, Wind Blade ensnared in the top of the tree. How did that get up there?
He blinked owlishly and hauled himself slowly up onto his feet.
Falk seemed genuinely surprised and gave an approving nod. ‘Didn’t think you’d be capable of standing yet.’
Ahren scowled and staggered a little as he pursed his lips. Speaking was going to be difficult, but he tried it anyway. ‘In Culhen’s head. Better’, he responded glibly. Then he scrambled over the wall of benches in front of him and stood up as straight as he could in front of his master.
The old man stroked his beard and looked amused. ‘So you’ve discovered that you can help each other if one of you is in trouble. It’s actually designed so that you can ignore the pain coming from an injury, but of course this gift of the gods also comes in useful if you have an ordinary hangover.’
Falk’s satirical comment was wasted on Ahren. Instead, the young man nodded and gave a silly smile as his dulled understanding had only picked up that his master had praised him.
The broad-shouldered Forest Guardian rolled his eyes and grabbed Ahren by the neck in order to push him forward. ‘We’d better knock you into shape. There’s no point in chiding you when you’re like this. You don’t understand what I’m saying.’
Ahren let himself be pushed along until they arrived at the next water trough. Within a heartbeat he was lying in the cold water, his head being firmly kept under the surface by Falk’s powerful hands so that the fog in his understanding was driven out by the shock. The old man’s method was as ruthless as it was efficient. Every so often he would allow his apprentice a brief moment to breathe before pushing him down into the freezing liquid again. Finally he let go of the young man who sat up gasping and looked accusingly up at his master, his head still splitting. Falk looked down at the hung-over young man unmoved and handed him a waterskin. ‘Drink it all. The herbal stock will ameliorate the remaining effects of the alcohol. But you’ll just have to put up with the headache. That will disappear on its own.’
Ahren forced himself to put the waterskin to his lips. If there was anything he really didn’t want to do at that moment, it was to drink. But the threat in Falk’s voice suggested that if he didn’t do as he was told, he would spend half the morning in the trough, and so he swallowed the contents as quickly as possible.
His stomach threatened to rebel, but Ahren ignored it as much as possible. Then he gave the waterskin back to Falk and stood up slowly. To his dismay he could see over half a dozen villagers watching him in amusement, and he went scarlet with embarrassment.
‘Good, at least you haven’t forgotten to be ashamed’, said Falk in a satisfied voice. ‘So tidying up should be no trouble to you. The good citizens of Deepstone will be delighted to have your assistance, don’t you think?’
The old Forest Guardian’s tone of voice was perfectly normal, but Ahren knew his master well enough to understand when any protest whatsoever would lead to terrible consequences. And so, he nodded acquiescently and repaired to the village square again.
Ahren and more than two dozen villagers spent the rest of the morning clearing up after the Spring Festival. He gave a hand wherever it was needed. He carried tables and benches, swept the ground, and brought down his weapon from the top of the oak, quickly strapping it on and enduring the amused looks of those around him.
‘It was a bet’, he heard behind him and the voice suggested that the speaker was in agony.
Ahren turned around and saw Likis, standing there in his crumpled robe, sweeping a particularly filthy spot with a birch broom. The slight young man’s felt cap was placed inside out on his head, yet nobody, it seemed, had taken the trouble to inform him of this. Even Ahren couldn’t help smiling at Likis but stopped when he imagined what he himself might look like. He went over to his friend, righted his headgear without saying a word before asking quietly, ‘a bet?’
Likis nodded thoughtfully. ‘Who’d be the quickest going up and down the tree. The loser had to drink something.’ The young merchant grimaced. ‘That was your idea by the way. After we’d finished Khara’s game. And you lost anyway. Your blade got snarled and you just left it in the tree.’ His friend shivered. ‘I’m never touching another drop of mead again.’
Ahren could only agree with him when suddenly hunger pains came over him. ‘Culhen’s woken up’, he said with a sigh. ‘I’d better look after him. The poor thing had to suffer some of my pounding head.’
Likis grimaced again. ‘Oh no, hopefully he won’t bite you. I know I would if I were him.’
They smiled at each other with tired faces, and Ahren went over to the white wolf, who was just having a good stretch. The animal had used Ahren’s work for another nap and now he was raining down demanding thoughts interspersed with accusations of having missed breakfast on account of Ahren.
The apprentice emitted apology after apology before setting out to organise the biggest portion of meat in the village he could find.
It was already late afternoon when they were finally ready to leave. The whole village had gathered to bid farewell to the travel party, and Ahren had just given Likis, who was halfway back to normal again, a big hug.
‘Don’t forget what we talked about’, he whispered to his slight friend, and looked knowingly towards Pramsbildt who was wishing Uldini a safe journey in a most self-important manner.
Likis gave a conspiratorial nod. ‘You can rely on me. Holken has been keeping an ear out among the village youth to see who might like to become a bailiff next year. He wants to enlist a few apprentices who he can form a militia with before the trouble in the Borderlands hits us.’
Reassured, Ahren nodded and mounted his horse, a good-natured mare with several years under the saddle. Much to the disappointment of Falk, who was a skilled knight and therefore an accomplished rider, his apprentice had no talent whatsoever for the art of horsemanship.
Everyone was still talking, and so Ahren took the opportunity to place his hand on Selsena’s soft white coat. The Titejunanwa was standing beside him, shimmering silver in the sunshine, and she looked at him with her good-natured gentle eyes.
‘I missed you, my dear’, said Ahren quietly. ‘Thank you for telling us where we could find the Fire Weed.’
He would have liked to have said more, but he was on the point of tears because of saying goodbye to his friends, and he didn’t want to be
completely overwhelmed by the emotions he was feeling.
Selsena transmitted her affection empathically and Culhen gave a bark before nudging up against the Elfish charger. The unicorn’s enjoyment of Culhen’s youthful exuberance was mixed together with the wolf’s gratitude and joy in Ahren’s head, and the young man rubbed his temples in an effort to concentrate.
‘Still got the hangover?’, asked Falk in a low voice as he mounted the unicorn and settled into the saddle.
Ahren shook his head. ‘When Selsena sends me emotions, and Culhen wants to communicate something at the same time, then it gets pretty full in here’, he said in a pained voice and pointed meaningfully at his head.
His master frowned and looked down thoughtfully at the wolf, who was jumping around with excitement. ‘It’s time that you learned to isolate yourself. In that way you can minimise your connection if necessary. You can practise that while we’re riding along. It’s the opposite of what you were doing this morning. Instead of trying to anchor yourself as much as possible in Culhen’s spirit, you try to gather your thoughts within yourself, as if you wanted to lock yourself away in your own head. Try it a few times, then you’ll understand what I mean. It’s as if you’re changing your own perspective. You’ll only know how it works once you’ve done it.’
Ahren nodded hesitantly and decided not to try out the experiment until they were on their way.
‘Do you want to call into Edrik before we travel?’ his master asked carefully.
Ahren looked at him darkly before giving a determined nod. ‘I paid my debt to him when I found him in a drunken stupor in the snow and carried him into the house. I gave the innkeeper gold yesterday to cover food expenses, but a talk with him would do neither of us any good.’ The young man still hadn’t forgotten the horrific vision the Grief Wind had presented him with - that of a possible future under the thumb of his alcoholic father. The memory made him tremble. ‘As far as I’m concerned, my proper father nearly drowned me in a water through this morning.’
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