A Threat of Shadows (9 page)

“This sounds like a story worth writing down,” Alaric said. “Do you mind?” At Douglon’s nod, Alaric pulled out his book and a coal pencil. He quickly took down what the dwarf had already said.

“The tunnel led straight ahead several hundred feet under the mountain,” Douglon continued, warming up to his story and his audience, “until it came out into a valley we hadn’t seen before. It was just an oversized crack in the mountains, really, left behind when the slopes beside it were thrust up. But it was inaccessible except from this tunnel.

“In the valley were the beginnings of a tower. A circle of iron-laced sandstone. It rose about twenty feet before it stopped, as though the builder had been interrupted. Only one room on the ground floor had been completed. A dusty bedroom.” Douglon leaned closer. “It had belonged to a wizard.”

Alaric’s mind was racing. Douglon had found a Wall, a tunnel, and a valley complete with the beginnings of a new Stronghold? In the Scale Mountains? More questions than he could voice swirled in his head.

“A wizard?” he asked finally.

Douglon nodded. “It was full of wizardy things. There were shelves of scrolls and pouches and boxes. The scrolls were written in runes we couldn’t read. But the pouches and boxes, every one held some marvel. The boxes held things like a spinning top that bounced off the sides, a pile of ancient gold coins, three dried mushrooms that hummed. One pouch held bright blue beetles the smelled of rosemary, all dead. Another was filled with pure silver sand.”

Douglon’s voice grew quieter. “All these things were fascinating, but we found the real treasure on a shelf near the bed. Next to a book, written in runes we couldn’t read, lay this.” Reaching into his cloak, Douglon pulled out a worn roll of leather.

Alaric unrolled it, reading a short, scrawled paragraph.

It feels wrong to bury something of such value. Perhaps I should give the stone to them, but I can’t bear to look at it. The memories haunt me. I will bury it in a place of honor and leave it behind. I pray this map remains useless, and I am never in need of finding it again.

The handwriting was the same as the scroll at the Stronghold. The page had been written by Kordan.

Alaric read and reread the paragraph, his heart pounding. The map really was to Kordan’s Wellstone. The new Stronghold the dwarves had found must have been built by the old Keeper as well. What had he done? Left the real Stronghold and tried to continue as a Keeper by himself?

Alaric flipped the leather over. Time had faded the ink, and there were blotches where the leather had been soiled, but most of the map was decipherable. Several sets of runes, meticulously drawn dotted the page.

Alaric let his eyes wander over the runes. There was no doubt that this was written by a Keeper. The precision and clarity of the writing made him surprisingly nostalgic. Whatever their other faults, the Keepers could write.

The map showed a valley at the base of the Wolfsbane Mountains containing some buildings. Two rock formations were labeled. In the center of the map was a tree with a gem drawn beneath it.

“And the town is Kordan’s Blight?” asked Alaric.

“Judging from the rock formations, yes,” answered the dwarf. “But whenever this map was drawn, the town was much smaller than it is today. And Kordan’s Blight is full of trees. How on earth do we know which one the map refers to?”

“These are the runes that Gustav translated?”

“If you can call it translation. Either Gustav is an idiot, or whoever wrote this was a lunatic. Everything is gibberish.” Douglon’s finger stabbed at a point on the map where a cluster of runes stood. “This says:
The falling stars cool the turtle’s back
.” Douglon glared at the wizard walking ahead of them on the road. “I’m willing to believe he’s an idiot.”

Alaric took the moment to study the runes. He could see what Gustav had translated, but the writing was off slightly. An extra tail here, an odd dot there.

These weren’t modern runes at all. They were ancient.

The Keepers had some books old enough to use them, and each Keeper was schooled in how to read them, but they were too nuanced and open to interpretation to be of use for most things today. The fascinating thing about the runes on the map was that even though they were ancient, each was similar to a modern rune with a different meaning. Sometimes radically different.

“Falling stars” was a decent modern translation, but in the ancient language, it read: damned soul. “Turtle’s back” should roughly translate to: a place of sanctuary. The word “cool” was a complicated rune that indicated: vengeance and justice. That rune also had the sense of turning the entire phrase into a question. The amount of nuance that was drawn into the runes was impressive. After piecing it together, Alaric decided that what the cluster really said was,
Shall the soul that has been damned seek vengeance or discover a place of sanctuary?

Alaric tried hard to hide the smile that kept creeping onto his face. First of all, the writing wasn’t part of the map. It was just Kordan’s musings. Secondly, almost no one besides a Keeper would be able to read the ancient runes. Barely anyone in Queensland read even modern runes. Gustav must be well educated to be able to translate the modern runes he had, but he would have them chasing after nonsense. Alaric marveled at the complexity of the writing.

Douglon reached over for the map, and Alaric forced himself to hand it back. He’d been so focused on that one set of runes, he’d barely looked at the map itself.

“So you ended up with the map,” Alaric said, watching Douglon roll it up and tuck it into his pocket. “Did you give Patlon the rest of the treasure?”

Douglon looking uncomfortable. “Patlon thought we should take all the wizardy things home before following the map. But since the stone sounded more valuable than everything else we’d found, I wanted to go get the treasure.”

Douglon’s voice trailed off. He shook his head and continued in an offhanded way. “In the end, we split up. He took all the stuff we had found, and I took the map.”

Alaric looked at the dwarf in disbelief. “He agreed to that?”

Douglon shifted. “‘Agreed’ might be the wrong word for it.”

“Smoke!” Gustav shouted from a turn in the road ahead.

A dark plume of smoke was visible over the hill to their left, roiling up into the blue sky.

Ayda and Douglon began to run. Ayda outpaced him quickly, racing down the road.

“Kordan’s Blight?” asked Alaric. The look on Brandson’s face as he urged the slow carthorse forward was his answer.

“Take Beast,” Alaric said tossing Brandson the reins. The blacksmith leapt into the saddle and galloped toward the smoke. Alaric climbed onto the lumbering cart and followed.

Once the carthorse plodded around the turn, the entire town was visible. A crowd was gathered before the nearest building, milling around under the sign with an anvil standing untouched at the road. The acrid smell of smoke cut through the air, and as Alaric drew the carthorse closer, he could feel the lingering heat from the fire. Nothing was still burning. What had been the smithy was now a smoldering pile of charred wood.

Brandson sat on Beast, staring at what was left of his home. There was nothing to be done.

Chapter 10

Ayda walked up to Brandson and put her arm around his shoulder. Gustav ran through the crowd, grabbing leftover buckets and throwing water toward the already doused building.

“It’s a little late for him to decide to do something useful,” Douglon said to Ayda.

Gustav tossed a large bucket full of water that splashed into a puddle near the front of the structure, not remotely close to any of the parts that were still smoking.

“Well, not useful exactly,” Douglon said.

Gustav glared at the two of them. Throwing the bucket down, he stalked away.

“I’m sorry, son,” a man said to Brandson. “‘Twas burning good by the time anyone saw it. ‘Twas naught to do but keep th’ other buildings safe.”

Brandson slid down from Beast and stood staring at the husk of his home. The roof was gone, and the walls were sagging. Behind the smithy, the remains of Brandson’s living quarters let out swirls of smoke. The smith began to walk toward them, his arm raised against the heat, but he couldn’t even reach what was left of the walls. Even from back where Alaric stood, waves of heat rolled off the building.

Alaric doubted there was anything salvageable, but something white caught his eye. He stepped up next to Brandson and found a light-colored rock leaning against the base of a burned wall. Chiseled into the stone was a symbol, or two symbols, one over the other.

“What’s that?” he asked Brandson.

The blacksmith looked at the rock blankly.

“That wasn’t there when we left,” Ayda said, squinting down at it. “The top symbol looks like an axe. I can’t tell what the bottom part is.”

Alaric crept toward the rock, the heat burning against the exposed skin of his face. He knelt and wiped wet ashes off of it, using the bunched corner of his robe. Then he stepped back quickly, and the three of them peered at the rock, trying to decipher the shape.

“What did you find?” Gustav demanded. “Move over. Let me see.”

“It’s a dwarf,” Douglon said from behind them.

“It doesn’t look like a dwarf,” said Ayda. “It looks like a lizard.”

“It is a dwarf, lying dead, smited by the axe,” Douglon said dully.

“How do you know?” Alaric asked. Ayda’s description was more accurate.

Douglon stepped up beside them, glowering at the white rock. “Because it’s Patlon’s symbol.”

***

Brandson stared into the bottom of his empty ale tankard. He hadn’t moved since collapsing into a chair in the tavern. His expression had gone from depressed to bleary. Alaric, returning from making sure that Beast and the carthorse were stabled behind the tavern, joined the rest of them at a table in the corner of the empty dining hall. The entire building was stuffy and smelled of onions.

“Are you sure that was Patlon’s symbol?” Alaric asked Douglon.

The dwarf nodded. “We invented it as children. He claimed that he needed a warning to scare his enemies. I never thought that would mean me.”

“It might not,” Ayda said. “Patlon didn’t hurt anything of yours. But he did destroy every single thing Brandson owned. Even though Brandson is guilty of nothing but generosity and goodness.”

Douglon looked stricken. “I’ll rebuild the entire smithy,” he said to Brandson. “Twice as big. With diamonds for windows.”

Brandson grunted and everyone fell into an uncomfortable silence.

“So…”Alaric said to Douglon, “Patlon just let you have the map?”

“I told him I was taking it, and he said nothing.” The dwarf shifted in his chair. “Course he was passed out at the time.”

Brandson dropped his tankard to the table with a thunk and turned to the dwarf. “You didn’t think to tell us that you’d stolen the map and a fire-wielding dwarf was going to come burn down my home?”

“I didn’t think he’d find me! It took me months to figure out that the mountains and rock formations the map was talking about were here. I have no idea how he found me.”

“He has a point,” Ayda said, and Douglon looked at her gratefully. “Who would have expected a dwarf to be that clever?”

Douglon’s smile turned to a glare.

She brightened. “I know! His purple elf helped him!”

Alaric let out a laugh at that, and even Brandson allowed a small smile before dropping his face into his hands. Ayda wrapped her arm around his shoulders.

“If Patlon found the smithy, why isn’t he still here?” asked Alaric.

“I’m sure he is, somewhere,” said Douglon. “He prides himself on his hunting ability. Claims he can wait for a week without food or water or sleep if he’s tracking his prey.”

“I doubt he can go that long,” Alaric said, “but if that fire was just set this morning, I’m sure he saw us come into town.”

Brandson groaned. “What are we going to do?”

“There are five of us and only one of him. He’s not much of a threat if we stick together,” Alaric answered. “We need to find a way to talk to him.”

“Brandson might need to sleep off all the ale before we plan anything,” Ayda said.

“Where are we going to sleep? If we stay here, he’ll probably just burn the tavern down on us,” Brandson said, raising his head enough to glare at Douglon with one eye.

The tavern door swung open letting in a swirl of fresh air. They all tensed. Douglon stood, his hand going to his axe. Gustav hunched over, glaring at the door and raising his hands as though he meant to shoot lightning at whoever entered. Alaric turned as well, but it was only a milkmaid carrying an enormous jug.

She stopped when she saw everyone looking at her.

Ayda gave her a friendly wave. Douglon nodded to her, dropping back into his chair.

The milkmaid gave a self-conscious smile and carried her jug into the kitchen. She returned a minute later. Catching sight of Brandson, she paused. Her gaze flicked uncertainly to Ayda’s arm draped over the smith’s shoulder, but she pushed one of her long, brown braids behind her shoulder, smoothed the front of her dress, and approached the table.