Bladeborn

by Clayton Schonberger

  * * *

  Bladeborn asked Nightslayer. “What am I to do, Nightslayer? So much greed! Many of them do not trust me after they lost their homes. Some blame me for causing it. The road ahead is unclear. What shall I do?”

  ~~Your NEW home on the yellow sun side will be stronger without those people, Bladeborn. Those who are leaving are marching to their ends. Your Kingdom will be founded by the strongest, those willing to accept their fates and struggle for their own rewards~~

  Most of the people of the Realms chose to follow King Rosen, King Lauren, King Dale, and Bladeborn. A few of the Dwarf warriors and most of the Dwarf citizens deserted, carrying packs of gold along with them.

  The long line moved slowly, tempted by more outcroppings of gold. The orders were not to take any of it, since it would slow the line, but almost everyone did take some. Rocks of solid gold were soon tearing holes in the pockets of many of the travelers. There was no way to prevent the display of greed. Spe loaded his bag of endless space until it seemed full, just in his spare time. Only the Elves would have none of it.

  Taylon, the Elven Knight, spoke about it to Bladeborn: “The Dwarven warriors are so loaded down that they will be useless in a fight. So are the others.”

  Bladeborn said, “Let them take what they can. They will throw it away when they must. At least that is my hope.”

  The column entered a place where the walls had more veins of gold. They were in a large pathway with meandering gold side-passages, strewn with solid golden pebbles and boulders. The pathway kept widening finally into a huge chamber, with a high ceiling, and there everyone stopped to take a measure of the situation.

  “What does the map say, Telunk?” Bladeborn said.

  The Dwarven Priest was huffing under his heavy backpack. He caught his breath and said, “The way seems to be through this golden chamber, according to the maps.”

  “Any clue as to how far we must still go?” Bladeborn said.

  The Dwarf replied simply, “No.”

  They began crossing the golden cavern. They were in a level area, with their lights stretching far behind them. The green and blue lights made all the raw gold ore around them seem tarnished in their eyes. The people were losing their enthusiasm for the gold. Occasionally, on the gold chamber floor, they would see glowing eyes looking at them from the distance, but whatever they belonged to would scamper off before the scouts could get there. Pools of standing water occupied some places in the cavern, and the map’s way led them across several fresh-water streams where the thirsty line would drink, water the livestock, and fill water-barrels.

  There were arguments about using some water-barrels to carry gold, and using pack animals as gold-haulers. Precious heirlooms and items that families had with them for years, like books or portraits, were discarded. Fine dishes and the few pieces of furniture that had been saved from the Rhinolon were discarded as well.

  They thought they were reaching the far wall of the cavern, but it just turned out to be a huge pillar that soared up, toward the high cavern roof. For a long time, they skirted its boundaries, then they kept on in the dim gold cavern.

  The scouts came back with word of a city up ahead. They had halted at a small river to examine the map.

  Bladeborn said, “What do you mean? Is it another ruined city like Eahmur?”

  Telunk said, “The scouts have reported to me that it’s empty, Bladeborn. It has no inhabitants!”

  ~~I do not know of this place, Bladeborn. We are much deeper in the world than Eahmur. Yet I believe this city was built long after Eahmur was destroyed~~

  They reached the walls of the city. With their soft lights, they could not see the entire scope of the twenty-foot-high walls. Bladeborn got onto the back of Spe, who tried to light the chamber with his fiery breath to survey the scene better. Beyond the walls was a city made entirely of gold: towers, streets, canals, temples, palaces, and more, all glistening with the yellow-green hue. It was seemingly empty.

  The gate was open. Thinking it could be easily defended if need be, the column entered. The place was not haunted by beasts—as far as they could tell. They tried to shut and bar the gates, but they were fused in an open position. They all fit easily inside, and began to camp, setting a group of soldiers at the main gate. Many of the people explored. There was a large keep, a temple, what appeared to be several palaces, and many smaller apartments.

  As they explored, they saw fruit carts, pottery stands, livery stables, butcher shops, everything a city normally has--all frozen in time, all seemingly solid gold, coated with a thin layer of golden dust. Not one person or living thing was there. Everyone wondered: what could have happened here?

  Bladeborn said to King Rosen, “My King, the only magic I know of that would be powerful enough to work such a thing as this is that of the gods. Perhaps at the central temple square there will be an answer to the mystery of this…golden city.”

  They began exploring a large palace-temple square with dry fountains and golden dead ground. King Dale and his men were arriving there. Bladeborn said, “Good King Dale, there seems to be no one in this city, anywhere.”

  King Dale replied, “Yes, General Bladeborn, we have come to the same conclusion. My people, the Elves, and the Dwarves have searched high and low. We found only dust. Some of the things that were alive at one time have been turned to gold and frozen in a lifeless state, but other things--like most plants--are missing.”

  King Rosen said to his cousin, “King Blair, we thought that an answer might be found in the temple, for this seems to be the work of a mighty, divine power.”

  King Blair agreed, and they all went together.

  They found the temple door had been closed but was bent outward by some enormous force--like something had tried to escape.

  “Other doors in the city which are fused shut are impassable, General Bladeborn,” young King Lauren said. “Some of the golden windows have been punched through--like the people here had tried to escape from their own golden prisons, once their homes and shops.”

  Inside the temple, they found a statue to a strange, humanoid goddess, and everything else seemed to be as if it had been left yesterday in its golden state. Bladeborn tried to pry a tapestry loose from the wall, but it was a fused part of the entire city. One of the Elves called them over to a place where found something. In the green glow of the light-globe, there was a flat section of wall with an inscription scratched into its surface. “Does anyone know what language this is?” King Dale said.

  “I can read it,” Bladeborn said. “It is in an ancient language I learned in the depths of the Human City.”

  Bladeborn considered the script. Then he said, very slowly for effect, “It says, and I roughly translate, ‘O travelers, if you wish to leave this golden land with your immortal souls and pitiful lives, take NOT the gold you have found here, lest you fall into the horrid clutches of the metal Demon-Beast...’” Bladeborn’s voice was very grave, and it shook as he spoke.

  King Lauren said, “By the gods! What luck it is that this Demon-beast has not already carried us off! I’m getting rid of all my cursed gold now!”

  Others began unloading their gold right then and there, casting away the rocks and pebbles.

  One of King Dale’s men said, “My King! Do I have your permission to go back to the column to get rid of all the gold on my family’s wagon?” Several others made similar immediate requests, which King Dale granted.

  The people had been struck to their core by Bladeborn’s message. Many said prayers of thanks to Saint Morth that the metal Demon-Beast was not present to prey upon them. The line of people from the Realms was soon moving again, quickly and many tons less the load. When apart from the others, King Dale said, “Bladeborn, did you accurately translate the message to us?”

  Bladeborn spoke candidly, saying “King Dale, in truth the message read, “Woe to the once-happy people of L’lanq! The Goddess of Gold has granted our wish, and now there is nothing we can do but leave our home.
Know, O traveler, gold is only a type of metal, and when everything is made of it, it has no value.’”

  King Dale nodded in understanding to Bladeborn. They left the city, and didn't stop again until it was far behind them.

  They left the golden city of L’lanq far behind and were weary from the weeks of travel. Spirits were low among the people of the Realms. Some thought they would wander the remainder of their lives. Yet they did not hunger, because Telunk could steer them to food when they ran low by refolding the maps. The cavern cattle stayed fed, for in many areas beneath Draconia, the mosses the cattle routinely ate grew wild. At under land streams, they refilled their water-barrels.

  They approached a place where a dull sound, like a bell, could be heard every hour. The passage through Draconia led to an open space and Spe flew up to see how high the ceiling was.

  “There is a maze of giant-sized pipes above and below us. The Pipes look like they go on for miles.”

  Bladeborn explained what Spe had seen to Telunk.

  “We have passed through the Center of the world,” Telunk said.

  The column came out of an enormous pipe onto a giant ramp. The hourly ringing sound was getting much louder, until it was such a noise that it became disturbing. “This in the only way, Bladeborn,” Telunk said.

  The ramp they followed led to a perfectly flat plain with an eerie red glow on the horizon. The ceiling of the cavern was so high above that there was a misty cloud layer above. There was a fiery luminescence to the clouds.

  After nearly an hour on the flat plain, they had to double-check the map. The way suddenly narrowed to passage a mere twenty feet across. The two sides of the crevasse were very high above and the floor sloped downward toward them. Bladeborn considered sending Spe to scout the tops of the ridge and considered scouting the ridges himself. It looked safe and they felt confident as they advanced, for such a place could be easily defended and there were no signs of the cavern crawlers and other beasts.

  Telunk insisted they needed to go through the crevasse, although it was unlike anything they had encountered thus far.

  Telunk said to Bladeborn, “There are some parts on this map I cannot read, as though we are walking on the surface of a giant gear, in one of its teeth. I have heard of such places. We must make haste.”

  The column was roused. As they spanned the distance at a rapid rate, a shattering *KLANG!* shocked them out of their senses. The ground shifted ten feet to the right with incredible force. It was so loud that for days afterward most of the people of the Realms only heard ringing in their ears.

  There was crying and there was blood. The sudden shift of the ground had injured many of them, and smashed some of the wagons. Several cavern cattle were dying, their legs broken. Bladeborn looked for Spe but could not find the dragon anywhere.

  Bladeborn telepathically asked Nightslayer, “Where are we? What has happened? Nightslayer, what was that sound?”

  ~~It seems to have put your people in great danger, Swordsman! You must put a stop to it if you can, Bladeborn, although you may find that difficult to do!~~

  “What?” Bladeborn asked the Sword of the Ancients. “What do you mean by that?”

  But the Sword, then, remained silent.

  The situation appeared so desperate to Bladeborn that he worried they would all come to their ends in the crevasse. If the painfully loud thump returned the people would panic and crush each other trying to escape it.

  Bladeborn was at the head of the column, setting a quick pace. He kept trying to speak telepathically to Nightslayer but the Sword did not respond.

  Bladeborn waited for the column to go by, giving sturdy smiles to the grim faces of those that passed him. He hoped the Dwarven Priests and Elven Knights could handle the front of the column.

  Bladeborn saw a man put cloth in his ears and decided to try to get everyone else to do so. But fully half the column was pushing forward in a panic out of the crevasse. They ran in stark terror, onto yet another flat plain beyond.

  The idea to bind their ears to protect against the noise was hurriedly passed along the column. Several people were nearly trampled in the rush to escape, and Bladeborn knew he had to do something.

  “I must find the source, and stop it!” Bladeborn thought. Despite the chaos around him, he focused all his Essence until he changed into a hawk. He flew out of the crevasse and saw the vastness of the chasm, several thousand feet wide at the top.

  It seemed they had been traveling in a part of an incomprehensibly giant gear. Far below, he could see a river of lava and in the space above was a network of pipes, each of them large as a mighty river or mountain.

  Then Bladeborn saw Spe, full-sized. There was a gargantuan hand holding Spe, and the dragon could not break free. The mind-numbingly gigantic hand belonged to what Bladeborn imagined could only be a titan. In his experience, it could have been nothing else.

  Bladeborn saw the human-like figure, standing maybe about a hundred stories tall—taller than the way fortress City looked from the outside. In its clenched fist it held the dragon, like a small piece of string. Spe had just gone limp in the titan’s grasp as if dead. Smoke was in the air, as if Spe had just unleashed the full force of his dragon-breath. The titan’s leathery skin was smoldering in the eerie glow that seemed to radiate from all around the area.

  The titan stood on a tiny ledge at a bank what seemed to be enormous-sized controls—levers, gears and pullies, and it had paid Bladeborn no mind yet. Around the titan’s ankles were massive chains and manacles. For some unknow reason it seemed to have be bound to the ledge it stood upon.

  The being’s eyes shifted his way with a lumbering movement that Bladeborn recognized as the only way something that large could move--stiffly and deliberately. He desperately flew toward its ear, even as it began to move with stunning speed. It was like watching a mountain suddenly jump off the earth. But the titan had not gotten direct sight on the small hawk that was Bladeborn—it just seemed to “know” he was there.

  The countenance of the titan’s face concerned time. Simply by staring into its eyes, Bladeborn had a moment that numbed his mind. Bladeborn knew the titan had been chained to the wall for the depth of aeons, performing the same action. To see the god-like figure, to look upon it…it was almost more than he could stand.

  Still in his hawk shape, he flew inside the titan’s ear. He still had to save Spe and his people, although he was by no means sure that his plan would work.

  Inside the ear of the Titan, Bladeborn shifted forms back into that of a human, and then he used much of his remaining Essence to grow large as he could. In a moment, he took up the entirety of the gargantuan creature’s inner ear. With all his might Bladeborn stabbed Nightslayer up to the hilt into the thing’s eardrum.

  Bladeborn shouted, “If you can hear me, Nightslayer, I need all your lightning power NOW!” There was a shattering *CRACK!* Still holding the Sword, Bladeborn was thrown back by the explosive force of the lightning stroke.

  Half a second later he was drowning in the titan’s rushing blood. A river of gore propelled him out of the titan’s enormous ear canal. Fighting to regain focus, he used his last Essence to change into the Hawk-form again. The titan began to twist to the side and pitch off the ledge where it had stood for so long. Blood rushed out of the side of the creature’s head like a huge, red geyser.

  As it spun about, the titan broke the chain that had held it captive. Pitching over the side of the ledge, the titan fell on one of the massive gears far below, near the lava river. The cataclysmic series of sounds that followed were calamitous, otherworldly crashes. The titan fell far down into the river of lava, unleashing a mighty wave of sonic power that reverberated throughout the vast space. It was sheer luck that Bladeborn’s people did not die when the titan fell.

  Out of Essence, Bladeborn could no longer hold enough concentration on the Hawk form, and was forced to land on the platform the titan had stood upon. Spe had fallen there when the titan’s grip went slack
. The dragon had a look on its face that Bladeborn recognized. Spe had the same look after the battle with the Avatar of Heaven.

  ~~You have once again survived, Swordsman! This was glory!~~ Nightslayer’s words seemed ill-chosen considering what had just happened. Bladeborn was glad to be alive—yet he said a prayer to Saint Morth for the fallen titan. Exhausted, he slumped to the ground.

  Spe was unharmed. Bladeborn assumed that Spe had tried to kill the creature on his own, when everyone was running.

  “The deafening sound we heard was some gear slipping when the titan pulled on a massive crank,” Spe said. “I used my white-hot flames upon the thing to try to stop it, and it nearly strangled me! Nothing happens for centuries, and then I am almost defeated three times in the same year!”

  Bladeborn thought he heard the dragon correctly, although his hearing at the time was not good.

  Along with many of the others from the Six Realms, Bladeborn heard ringing in his ears for days. Some had their hearing permanently damaged by the awful sound.

  Bladeborn’s people found no other titan after the first. After they were told the cause the sounds, many counted themselves lucky to have survived.

  Bladeborn had, for an instant, felt an inkling of how long had the titan been there and the knowledge had eaten at his sanity.

  ~~It is each titan’s curse to work the machinery of the world. This one’s death freed him. Although you have done a great justice, do not dwell upon what you saw in the titan’s eyes. Such is enough to drive a man into madness~~

  Chapter 25: The Demon Trolls

  Bladeborn’s people were unsure of how far they had traveled, since it had seemed that for several days now the column had been wandering around in concentric circles. Even the eldest Dwarf had lost his sense of what was up and down, front and back. At one point, they were stretched out along a bizarre corridor in which the lights from the front of the group seemed to corkscrew around the ceiling so that some of them were looking up at others standing above and behind.