The girl, Marta, bobbed her head and smiled as she left quickly for the kitchen. Eril couldn’t be sure, but he thought the girl might be trying to flirt with him. He laughed at the thought. She was a child, probably only eleven or twelve at the most, and still looked much more girl than woman.
The stew was tasty, and Eril was amazed when he looked down at the empty trencher. As he dug into the second helping more slowly, he looked around the rapidly filling common room. Most of the folk seemed to be farmers or other tradesmen. The large fireplace at the other end of the room burned cheerfully, and one man pulled out a fiddle and began a spirited country ballad.
Everyone seemed in a good mood. As new men entered (and it was nearly all men), most would look around, recognize Eril and come to thank him. Eril mostly just nodded or said something self-deprecating. None joined him at his table, though Eril caught most of them glancing his way repeatedly. It seemed they didn’t know quite what to make of a teenaged wizard powerful enough to take down a group of bandits.
As Eril finished his second helping and was starting to feel both comfortably full and a little sleepy, the innkeeper came by with a pitcher to top off Eril’s tankard. He glanced around the room and seemed to come to a decision.
Sitting down at the table the innkeeper spoke, “You know, they’re all a bit mystified by you?” he chuckled easily. “You’re like no wizard anyone here has seen or heard of before.”
Eril just shrugged. What was there to say?
The innkeeper continued, ”I’m not sure I’ve introduced myself. The name’s Took. Aye and I’ve been running this fine establishment since I was scarce older than you. My da passed it on to me as he died quite young. I hadn’t thought to continue the family business, but when he passed, there was me ma and sisters to think of, and, well, it’s not a bad life.
“So what brings you here to this small hamlet, young master wizard? Were you just on the road to Argaland and beset by those ruffians?”
“No,” Eril said and paused. “I came here because you’re the closest settlement to the old castle ruins.”
“Of course. I should have guessed, you bein’ a wizard and all. Most wizards I’ve seen through the years that weren’t just on the road were here for the same purpose. Do you fancy you’ll find aught? Yon castle has been picked over for more ‘an a thousand years.”
Eril nodded. “I know. But I think there still may be something there, maybe underground.”
“Well, then you’ll be wantin’ a guide.” Eril was about to protest, but Took kept talking right over him. “You’ll be wantin’ my young Fil. No one around here knows the castle ruins better than her. Much as I’ve tried, I’ve never been able to keep her away from them. She’ll take you right where ye need to go.”
Eril was really not wanting to be slowed down by a mundane, as he felt that he could search fastest if there were no one to hinder him. Worse, this guide the innkeeper was pressing on him was female.
Before he could even figure out how to protest this suggestion without sounding rude, Took was already yelling to someone Eril had been assuming was a young man by the fire.
“Fil, get over here. Meet the young wizard. He needs a guide to the ruins, and you’re just the one for it.”
The young woman was in deerskin hunting leathers. Her black hair hung nearly obscuring her face but was cut short so that it only touched her collar. She came over with at least as much reluctance as Eril felt at having her come himself. She was thin, with only barely discernable breasts. A long hunting knife hung from the wide belt at her waist. Her deerskin boots were laced up to mid-calf, and though she moved with reluctance, Eril could see she moved with almost animal grace. She came to the table beside Took and looked at Eril with a flat stare.
“This here’s Filora. We call ‘er Fil fer short. She’s quite the hunter and tracker, and honestly one of the main reasons we were able to stay open with the bandits so close. She’s smart enough to know she couldn’t tangle with them, but she could let us know where they were when they were close.”
“Then why didn’t anyone catch them before?” Eril asked, confused, and irritated.
The innkeeper wasn’t annoyed. “Knowin’ where they were wasn’t ever the problem. Dez is a wily cruft. He knew when folks were comin’, and if it was a big enough party, they’d just fade away. If not, he’d set an ambush and take them down.
“Fil here is wood wise, but so was he, and Fil is smart enough she never let them catch her. Besides, like I said, Fil here has always preferred the ruins for hunting. Ain’t that right, Fil?”
The young woman nodded slowly, but said nothing.
Took obviously wanted the girl to say something, and when she didn’t, he rushed to fill the silence.
“Now, Fil, tell the wizard you can guide him in the ruins.”
“I can guide you,” Filora said, reluctantly, “though I doubt you truly need my services. But if there is something you are looking for special, I can probly help yeh find it faster.”
Eril realized that it likely would be easier to assent than to fight this. He was also somewhat intrigued by the young woman who did not seem a woman at all.
He’d never met a woman like her before. Frankly, he’d gotten to know very few women in his life at all, and none his own age. There really hadn’t been time. In both his apprenticeships he’d been surrounded by men and boys and hadn’t had the free time of his peers to pursue female companionship since he’d been old enough to consider it.
“Alright. I guess you could be some help. I want to get started right after breakfast.”
Fil looked mildly annoyed but Took beamed. “That’s all settled then. Most excellent. Are you ready to go to your room yet?”
Eril nodded. “Aye, I think I am. It’s been a long day.”
Took called Marta over and had her lead Eril upstairs to a small room. The girl looked annoyed, but not at Eril. He wasn’t sure why she’d be upset and was too tired to pry.
As soon as he was alone in the room. He settled his heavy pack, took off his boots, and pulled out his sending stone. He spent nearly half an hour acquainting Master Silurian with the events of the day, then got into bed and was sound asleep before his head finished sinking into the pillow.
Chapter 34
The next morning Eril slept later than he’d planned, mostly because of the differences between the local time and when his body thought it should be. Being several hundred miles further east than he’d been the day before had that effect.
When he came down to the common room, he found an impatient Fil absently cleaning her fingernails with her hunting knife.
“I thought you said, we’d make an early start. The morning’s nearly half gone,” she said, examining her nails and then her blade.
“Sorry, I’m not used to when the sun comes up around here,” Eril said, yawning.
“What’s that supposed to mean? The sun comes up when it comes up.”
“Yeah,” Eril replied. “Any breakfast still around?”
“My Da made sure they left you something. He didn’t want his prize guest going hungry, even if he can’t get up on time.”
Eril was starting to get a bit annoyed. “Hey, I said I’m sorry. No need to rub it in.”
Eril found the plate that had been set aside: bread, cheese, and a greasy hunk of meat from the previous night. He said nothing more, eating quickly. Fil, for her part, gave him a tankard of ale and tapped her foot while she waited.
“I’ll just go and get my pack, and we can go,” he said, running up the stairs. He swung on the heavy pack, put on both his rings, checked his amulets, and came down and went straight out the door.
Fil was waiting, in addition to the hunting knife she’d worn the previous night, she also wore a small pack and had an unstrung bow and quiver across her back. Seeing him, she set off without a word.
She walked rapidly, almost running as she weaved quickly around bushes and sparse trees. The vegetation became more open and low to the
ground as they approached the ruins. There were large stones scattered everywhere. Some of them showed signs of having been part of structures at some point in the past, but most were just obstacles to be gone over or around.
Eril was quickly out of breath, trying to keep up with the woodland tracker. She moved with an economy of motion that allowed her to cover the uneven ground at an impressive speed. Soon Eril was lagging further and further behind.
When she had achieved a nearly two-hundred-yard lead, she finally looked back, hopped up on top of a larger boulder and yelled, “Why so slow, wizard?”
Eril said nothing while he made his way to where she waited. Once there, he paused a moment to catch his breath and said, “Well, I don’t usually walk long distances. I’m a bit out of practice.”
Filora smirked. “Really? You said yesterday you came from Salaways. That’s hundreds of miles away. I didn’t see a horse. So how did you get here if you didn’t walk?”
Irritated by her attitude, he told her the truth. “Well, usually I’d just fly. That’s how I got here yesterday.”
“You expect me to believe that?” she said, hands on her hips, challenging.
Eril said nothing, just floated slowly until he was ten feet above her looking down. “No, I don’t expect you to believe. I expect you to keep up.”
With that, Eril flew forward at an increasingly rapid pace until he was at the largest standing pieces of the ruins. He circled around looking for a likely place where there might have been an entry going into the earth. While he circled, he could sense an immense distortion in the force lines below ground level. He knew he was near the gate, he just had to find a way down to it.
He landed near the massive columns that must at one point have been part of the central keep. The columns were over ten feet across and were broken off at various heights anywhere from twelve to sixty feet above the ground. Fil hiked over to join him.
“If you can fly, then what am I doing here?” she demanded, out of breath from having run the last mile to where Eril stood.
“You’ll note, I didn’t ask for your assistance. Your father insisted, and I didn’t want to seem rude.”
She glared at him, then nodded. “You’re right, he does make it impossible to refuse sometimes. It drives me crazy.”
Eril didn’t comment on that, but looked around at the massive field of wreckage. It might take days or weeks before he found a way below ground.
“Well, since you are here, maybe you can help me anyways. I’m looking for a stairway, doorway, tunnel, or something that leads underground. The thing I’m looking for is down there. I can sense it, but even from the air I couldn’t see any way to get below ground.”
“Humph,” Fil snorted. “I guess master magic man doesn’t know everything after all. And, yes, I really do know these ruins better than anyone else alive. On that my Da’s right.
“As far as I know, there are or were two ways down below. Lots of others have come before looking for them, so I took the time to check myself. Back over there,” she said, pointing in the direction back towards the village, “there’s a road that used to lead to the castle before it was destroyed. Most of the paving has been torn up and carted off over the centuries, but if you know where to look, you can see how the land was formed for it.
“Anyway, that road split just before the castle, one branch came here, and other went over there,” she pointed to a large mound of rubble east of their position. “As you can see, there was a big structure there and the road leads right to it. The thing must have been huge, and it was destroyed even more violently than this place,” she said, waving at the pillars around them.
“People have been carting rock from there for centuries, and there’s still tons and tons left, and it definitely goes down below the ground level. Though, I doubt even you with your wizardly mojo would have any way of clearing it in less than months, if ever.”
“You said there were two ways you knew of. What’s the other?” Eril said, his heart sinking from her earlier revelation.
“Well, your wizardship, you happen to be in luck, the other entrance is quite close, though I don’t know if it will do you any good either.” She hopped down from the boulder she’d stood on while they talked and walked deeper into the ruins of the keep.
She led until they arrived at a spot where a piece of one of the massive columns lay on its side. “I’m sure you wouldn’t have seen this from the air, and I doubt you’d have found it without my help, but there it is,” she said pointing at the side of the column.
At first, Eril saw nothing, just the enormous broken column laying on its side. Then, looking closer, he saw where her finger was pointing, the solid stone floor showed the edge of a cleanly squared off hole. Getting down on his hands and knees, he could see the stone steps of a broad staircase leading down. The stairwell was covered entirely by the fallen pillar, except for this one sliver.
“Yep, there it is. Those are stairs leading down, and the only ones around, though I don’t see how they’ll do you any good,” she said smugly.
“Oh, and you’re not the first one to know about or try to go down them. See those rotted beams over there?” she pointed at several weathered and rotting wooden beams, a few of which were trapped under the column.
“Those are what’s left of a crane some men put together to try and lift this piece off. The weight of the stone was too much, and the crane collapsed, but not before they got a look under that column and saw that several more large boulders are blocking the stairway. When they saw that even moving this column piece would only be the beginning and that it was too much for their crane, they gave up.
“No one’s tried since, and that was over fifteen years ago. I only know about it because my older brother told me when I was going to try and squeeze down through that hole.”
“You have an older brother?”
“Yeah, he’s from my Da’s first wife. She died not long after he was born. He’s fifteen years older than me. Joined the army in Argaland. My Da doesn’t like to talk about him.”
“Humph,” Eril replied, looking closely at the broken column. He focused his sight on it and grunted again. “You might want to step back a bit.” He stepped forward and tapped the stone. There was a resounding crack as it split in half.
“There, that should be a bit easier to work with,” he said, stepping back and focusing once more on the closer piece.
“What are you going to do . . .” Fil began, but stopped when she saw the column piece slowly start rising into the air. He grunted, drew more power, and when it was seven or eight feet up launched it sideways, letting it crash in between two of the standing columns twenty feet away.
The rectangle of the stairwell was now clear, but less than seven feet down a huge irregular piece of stone was wedged, creating a plug across the entire stairway, several smaller boulders atop it.
“I bet that’s what scared them off,” Eril nodded at the block. “That’s magically hardened stone. I doubt men with pick axes could make a dent in it if they worked for a year. Only magic could get you through it.” He smirked, “And it just so happens, I have that kind of magic.”
Eril looked around when he heard nothing from Fil. She was standing back where he’d told her to move earlier. Pale, with eyes wide, she was wordlessly pointing and mouthing at the column piece he’d thrown.
She stammered, finally audible, “You, you . . . just threw that. Threw it like it was a pine cone. Like it was nothing.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say it was nothing. That was a lot of work. Didn’t you see me straining?”
“Straining? I’ve seen men lift one hundred, two hundred pound boulders. Their faces turn red. The veins stand out on their foreheads, they sweat and grunt and tremble. You did none of that, just a little grunt. That’s not straining! You just threw that stone twenty feet. How did you do that?” She was nearly screaming hysterically by the end of her statement.
“Magic? Really, that’s all there is. And b
elieve it or not, it is going to be lots more work to get that plug out of the stairwell than lifting that column piece was. That stone plug is wedged in, and it’s magically hardened stone.” He shrugged. “We’re not done yet. We’re just getting started.”
Filora just shook her head in amazement, then sighed. “Okay. Alright then. I guess you’d better get started. Let me know if I can do anything. And please don’t forget I’m here and drop a rock on me.”
Eril just laughed and began to concentrate on the plug.
§ § §
Examining the stone obstructing the stairway, Eril quickly became convinced that it wasn’t there by chance. Someone had deliberately placed it to block access to the subterranean portions of the old castle. He focused his sight on the ragged edges of the stone block. The main block was magically reinforced to a degree he’d never seen before. This was much tougher stuff than the walls of Dorull’s castle. The edges, though, were broken and the reinforcement was decayed there.
He strained with his zdrell against the stone, but it resisted him. He tried alternately pushing and pulling to see where the sticking points were. In short order, he found that there were two points opposite each other where it was most tightly wedged. He examined the edge of the stone as well as the walls of the stairwell where it was stuck. He focused on dissolving a small portion of the rock at the sticking point.
At first, the magically hardened stone of the plug and the walls of the stairwell resisted his efforts, but slowly, little by little, he was able to get it to flake away and disintegrate. He only needed to reduce the stone’s width by an inch or so on each side and he figured it would let him pull the whole thing free.
Just as he thought he had enough rock removed to make another attempt to pull the plug out, Filora spoke up.
“You know, if you do manage to clear this stairway and find a way down into the castle, won’t Old Man Torch just claim whatever you find as his?”
Eril looked up, irritated and confused. “What are you talking about? Who is Old Man Torch, and why would he have any claim on anything I dig out of here?”
The Journeyman for Zdrell Page 20