Then Ahren stepped forward and raised his right hand. It floated over the rock but then he shrugged his shoulders and changed his mind. He placed his left hand on it. Falk smiled approvingly before his face suddenly grew serious.
For an almost imperceptible glow came from the rock as Ahren called out,
‘I do swear it’.
A blinding flash of light filled the inside of the chapel and everyone shielded their eyes with their hands. A heartbeat later and the Godshouse was back to its peaceful self as if nothing had ever happened. There was confusion among the congregation. People looked at each other in bewilderment, looking for an explanation for what had just occurred.
Keeper Jegral raised his arms reassuringly, his silk gown was still sparkling and seemed to have trapped the lightning flash. It looked as if the robe was glowing in silent celebration. The priest’s movements scattered a dozen little rainbows throughout the room.
‘Surely just a stray shaft of light from the window’, he announced with a firm authority in his voice that nobody dared to contradict.
He indicated to Likis to continue, who banged his hand on the rock and spoke hurriedly, ‘I do swear it’, and then pulled his hand back as quickly as possible as if he had touched a poisonous rather than a lifeless object.
Meanwhile Ahren was looking down at his hand, which tingled a little but was completely uninjured. He looked over at the Keeper in the hope of getting some help but Jegral simply ignored him. He spoke the closing words and the ritual came to an end. The four young men left their places in the front row, went back to sit down among the congregation and heard murmuring around them. Ahren looked at Falk, who alone among the people was motionless and seemed to be looking through his apprentice as if he didn’t exist. His face was pale and lifeless, and he looked as if he had been shaken to the core.
His cursed bed had caught fire again! Of course it was partly his own fault, for he had woven the bed itself into the magic net but he hadn’t reckoned on this. He looked at the charred mass that had once been the delicate carvings that had covered the four-poster bed. He had not wanted to miss the slightest movement of the netting and for that reason had slept within the catchment area. No goblin in Hjalgar could sneeze without him getting wind of it. His sleep had of course been somewhat disturbed, but this here? Snorting with rage he ripped off the burnt satin robe from his body and studied the ebony coloured skin that appeared beneath. No burns. That was lucky. His personal protective magic was still working.
He climbed out of the smoking ruins and went out onto the terrace, while behind him the servants, in wide-eyed shock and open-mouthed, began clearing the chaos. He had found the old man and his loyal mare with the help of the last net but could not make head nor tail of how he was connected with the omen. He was clearly no threat.
And so he had held up the net and listened to everything going on within the Forest Guardian’s orbit. With a flick of the hand all the magic threads, which were once his place of sleep and had almost turned him to ashes, became visible again. Green flames danced around black tendrils until a lurid flash of light destroyed the whole construct. That was unequivocal.
He let forth a long sigh and raised himself up into the wind with some words of power. He began floating to his destination and felt a cold blast of air tugging at him.
He would have to get hold of some clothing on the way.
Ahren stared into Selsena’s slivery eyes.
‘Now let me get past’, he cried out annoyed, and tried to squeeze past the heavy body of the horse. But she pranced a step in his direction and knocked him to the ground.
The young man got up with a groan and eyeballed her again.
Falk had left the chapel the day before hot foot and stamped into the cabin, slamming the door behind him. The Titejunanwa had been standing guard at the entrance since then, preventing Ahren from reaching his master. The apprentice was worried about his master’s strange behaviour and didn’t want to leave Falk out of his sight. He had slept outside, snuggled up to his wolf, and even missed the festive meal in honour of the new community members. His stomach was rumbling, and as had slept on the bare ground, his back ached.
It was late afternoon and his patience was at an end. He turned around and with a few deft movements of his fingers he lit a fire. Then he took the smouldering branches and began throwing them in a wide arc through the cabin chimney. Nothing happened for a few seconds, but then he heard a loud cursing coming from within and two heartbeats later the door was flung open, hitting Selsena in the rump. She moved aside with a disgusted snort and an angry Falk came into view.
The veins in his head were bulging and his face was a deep red. A smoking branch was still hanging on his collar as he roared, ‘WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!’
‘Welcome back, master’, said Ahren in a friendly tone, determined not to be brow-beaten.
Falk threw his arms in the air and furiously stamped back into the cabin. Ahren slipped in quickly too, before the door crashed shut again. The bed was untouched, apparently Falk hadn’t slept. Ahren furtively glanced at the old man. The angry red colour had vanished but now he was staring listlessly out the window. Whatever had been eating him, it was still there.
Ahren warmed up the stew and placed two full bowls on the table. Falk didn’t react so he gobbled down both bowls himself. Then he swept the cabin, added firewood to the fire and began to groom Culhen, who stretched out and grumbled contentedly.
When it finally became dark, he lay down and watched the figure of his master, still standing there, before he finally fell asleep.
Sometime during the night Falk had left the house and was now lying asleep under a tree and snug against Selsena. She had her legs folded under her as she always did when she wanted to rest.
Ahren stood at the door early the next morning and looked at the two of them. Whatever was bothering Falk, Selsena was obviously helping him deal with it.
The young man decided to seek out Keeper Jegral. Perhaps he could help Falk or at least explain to Ahren what the story with the light was.
He ambled into the village and had a friendly greeting for everyone he met. Most reacted as they always had done but there were a few who seemed nervous and hurried away. There seemed to be more than one person brooding over what had happened. He found the Keeper in his reading room, hidden behind a pile of books.
‘Good morning, Keeper’, he said loudly to attract his attention.
The priest looked up and blinked owlishly when he recognized the apprentice.
‘May the Three protect you, Ahren’. There was an audible creak as the figure stretched unceremoniously. ‘I take it this is not a courtesy visit?’
Without waiting for an answer, he continued, ‘I’m looking for answers myself, you know. But I can’t find any. This Spring Festival ritual just came out of nowhere a few hundred years ago. It was never mentioned in the yearly chronicles, and then, from one year to the next it was suddenly a part of the Spring Consecration. No explanation, no nothing. That’s very unusual’.
Ahren could almost physically feel the priest’s frustration. He wasn’t going to get any answers here today. He said his goodbyes and wandered aimlessly through the village. He kept seeing uneasy eyes staring at him, and so, clenching his teeth, he made his way home again. Much to his surprise and delight, Falk was up and cheerful when he arrived. His master had packed an enormous rucksack and indicated to Ahren to put it on. The young man groaned under the weight and Falk strode silently into the forest. His apprentice followed him, swaying under the weight, and hoping that his master hadn’t decided to take out all his frustrations on him.
Falk led him up to the most northern end of the forest, then down to the western border and then further down to the southern edge of the trees. He would frequently point out milestones to Ahren and give tips of what he should keep a particular eye on in various parts of the forest. The first few days were certainly hard going but the longer they were underway, the lighter t
he rucksack became. Falk clearly didn’t want to delay the hunt and soon he hardly felt the bundle on his back. He constantly sensed Selsena as a silver-grey shadow flitting between the trees, yet she kept her distance. It was as if Falk wanted to get as much information as possible into Ahren’s head before they finished their tour around the forest.
They were on the way back at last when Ahren summoned all his courage and asked, ‘master, what sort of a light was that in the chapel?’
He held his breath, anxiously awaiting the reaction, for he had no idea what would happen now.
Falk stopped, paused and then turned to face the young man, who unconsciously took up a defensive stance.
You’ve certainly thrown him there. Selsena’s voice rang out uninvited in his thoughts.
Falk ignored her and tried to think of a suitable answer for his apprentice.
‘I saw something like this once before, many years ago. It means that I must leave Deepstone for a while’, he said finally.
Ahren suddenly had an uneasy feeling in his stomach and could only stammer, ‘what do you mean?’
Culhen pressed up against his leg and he held firmly on to his soft fur. The wolf was now as tall as the middle of his thigh.
‘I have to seek out a very dangerous place now and the way there is long. I can’t take you with me’, he continued in a tone that brooked no dissent.
The young man recognized this tone and knew he wouldn’t get anywhere. And so he decided to play along for the moment, which would give him a chance to think out what tack to take.
He nodded, knowing that his voice would in all probability have betrayed him.
‘Good boy’, grunted Falk and trudged onwards, lost in thought again.
The following day they arrived at their cabin again, which looked forlorn in the afternoon sunshine.
As they entered, Ahren noticed a carefully folded sheet of papyrus that somebody had pushed under the door. He recognized Likis’ neat handwriting and wondered what was so important that his friend would leave something so valuable. Neither vellum nor papyrus were cheap and were mostly only used for official reasons or for profitable business dealings. Only the truly wealthy wrote letters to each other.
Ahren was able to read by now, and so he scanned the writing. Then he crumpled up the letter and threw it onto the fire that Falk had just lit. The old man raised his eyebrows and looked at the youth. Ahren clenched his fist and said quietly, ‘Sven is stirring it up again. He’s spreading rumours that the thing with the rock is a sign from the Three that they are angry because we are bringing up a Dark One. We’re clearly not honouring the gods and other nonsense. The fact that we’ve been missing for a few days isn’t helping things either.
He shook his head and looked out the window.
Falk grunted and sat down on a stool. He hadn’t seen that coming. ‘Good, I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow. Then I’ll decamp’.
Ahren spun around. ‘You’re seriously going to leave me on my own to face this mess?’ Reproach and disbelief were written all over his face.
His master answered in a pained voice. ‘I’m leaving you alone with the whole forest, boy. The village intrigues should present no problem’.
Falk had dismissed the latest attacks by the miller’s son so casually that it was clear his own problems had to be considerable. Ahren was far from sure he could persuade his master to stay. He decided he would ask Selsena for help early the next morning when Falk was in the village. His master would surely listen to her. He hoped.
An uneasy silence hung in the air that evening and Ahren went to bed early. The thought that this would be the last night together for a long time dampened his mood and followed him into his dreams. A shadowy black figure seemed to be following him in the wood and it kept coming nearer. He kept looking anxiously over his shoulder at it and pointed it out to Falk, who didn’t seem to notice it. When the thing was very close, he said, ‘I must go now’, and disappeared with a boom. Black-boned fingers grasped at Ahren and pressed on his throat…
Then he woke up.
The booming sound was still there and after several heartbeats he realized that somebody was hammering on the door in the middle of the night. As he was sitting up, still in a daze, Falk jumped out of the bed cursing, lit a candle and stomped to the door calling out loudly, ‘may the Three have mercy on you if this isn’t important!’ He pulled aside the latch and swung the door open.
A small pitch-black figure stood in the doorway and said, ‘they have and it is!’
Ahren thought for a moment that the monster in his dreams had come to collect him but then he saw that it was a small boy with ebony coloured skin, wearing a black robe. He held a smoothly polished dark crystal ball in his right hand which glittered in the candle light. Before he recognized what it was, Falk had already slammed the door shut with a cry of anger, not giving their unusual visitor a chance to step in.
‘Very adult’ intoned a sarcastic voice through the thick wood. The dry, sober tone didn’t match the voice of a young boy and this made Ahren uneasy, as did his master’s violent reaction.
Falk roared through the closed door. ‘Get lost, I want to have no more to do with you’.
‘I would rather come through an open door but come through I shall. What say you now, Falkenstein?’
Falk opened the door wordlessly and stood aside.
‘Good decision’, said the boy in a praising, almost fatherly voice, and he stepped inside.
Ahren quietly pinched himself in the arm to make sure that he wasn’t dreaming. They obviously knew each other, but why did his master allow this smart-aleck to treat him like that?
‘It’s been a while, hasn’t it?’ the boy remarked. ‘Where’s Selsena hiding then?’
Falk snarled, ‘if she’s any sense and noticed your presence, she’ll have galloped away as quickly as possible’.
‘No need to be so rude, Falkenstein. If memory serves me correctly, you were the one who was much better at running away. Isn’t that so?’, was the calm response.
Culhen had hardly reacted to the boy, strangely enough, and was even allowing him to stroke him. The boy looked at the wolf curiously.
Ahren took the opportunity to observe the intruder in more detail.
He looked like a boy of perhaps nine summers from either the deep lands of the south or the jungles of the east where the people had dark brown skin. His head was completely shaven and his eyebrows had been plucked and trimmed to form two thin lines. His expression was majestic, a sharp, straight nose above a severe mouth. His bearing was that of an adult although he had the appearance of a child. He was wearing a simple, black robe, which lent his ambiguous appearance an air of something disturbing and ominous. The material shimmered and Ahren recognized it must be made from satin. Whoever he was, he was certainly wealthy.
Falk had collapsed on a stool. The boy’s last remark had obviously hit him where it hurt. ‘You have no right to say something like that. Not you’, Falk said in little more than a whisper.
The visitor now became animated for the first time. ‘Oh yes I do. I’ve earned that right through all the years we spent doing your work while you all were in hiding or chasing your gossamer dreams. Do you know what Qin-Wa is up to at the moment?’
‘I heard’, said Falk darkly.
‘Really? Here in the back of beyond? You don’t know the half of it, Falkenstein’.
‘They call me Falk here’, muttered Falk and stole a glance at Ahren.
The apprentice looked bemusedly from one to the other and didn’t understand the world anymore. Falkenstein was one of those flowery names used in the Knight Marshes. But if Falk was really called Falkenstein, why was he using the short form? Had his mentor done something wrong and was he now in hiding here? When he had spoken about his past, the word ‘drifter’ had come up. Apparently, he had concealed more from his apprentice than the young man had imagined.
The intruder looked directly at Ahren for the first time, deep blue eyes tha
t bore into his own. ‘Falk, hmm? Well alright. It makes no odds at the moment’.
He snapped his fingers and the wood in the fireplace lit up and blazed for a moment with a powerful flame. Blinking in the sudden light, Ahren tried to take in what had just happened when the boy bowed to him and introduced himself in a formal tone. ‘May I introduce myself? Uldini Getobo, adviser to the emperor of the Sunplains, chief commander to the Ancients and beloved of the gods’. And he gave an extremely winning smile which revealed his teeth. He was the very paragon of charm and politeness.
‘Ahren, delighted to meet you’, mumbled the apprentice instinctively, and stared at the figure in front of him. So this was the immortal magician who had once weaved the Bane Spell against the Adversary and created the Pall Pillar? Ahren decided that this would be the opportune moment to wake up.
He closed his eyes firmly and pinched himself in the arm. Unfortunately, this didn’t change the scenario and the young boy was still there.
‘Did you expect us to recognize you?’ Falk’s interjection was thrown into the room with more than a hint of gratification and malice. ‘Any bard trying to earn a crust by telling stories about you, makes you into a benevolent old man with a big bushy beard. Nobody wants to hear about a shit-arse who can flatten whole cities in a pique of anger’.
Uldini looked over Ahren’s shoulder at Falk mischievously and said, ‘there you are at last, my old friend. I did miss you’.
Ahren couldn’t tell if this was sarcasm or the truth and before he could decipher Falk’s facial reaction, his master asked, ‘well, what do you want here?’
‘Don’t feign ignorance, you know very well’. The magician stuck out his hand and the crystal ball that he had been holding floated upwards and remained hanging in the air between the boy and Ahren. The apprentice pulled further back into his bed but the ball simply adapted its position.
‘Just stay still, it will only take a second and probably won’t hurt’, grumbled the dark-skinned boy and mumbled a few mysterious words. Green sparks danced in the air between the ball and Ahren before transforming into a bright flash of light that resembled the light in the chapel during the Spring Festival.
Ahren- the 13th Paladin Page 18