The Quest (The Hidden Realm Book 5) (24 page)

“But how will you find her?” asked Ascilius with a frown. “You must know ahead of time where to open your portal.”

“The location of her cell was fixed in my mind when I saw it in my orb,” replied Elerian. “I am confident that I can direct a portal to the same chamber that I saw inside the sphere.”

“Your plan is full of risk, but there is a chance that it may succeed,” replied Ascilius after a moment’s thought. “You and I will go together to rescue Anthea while the others wait here for us to return.”

“That I cannot agree to,” thought Elerian determinedly to himself as Ascilius fell silent. “I must convince him to remain behind or he will perish with me in Anthea’s cell.”

“I knew you would wish to come, Ascilius, in spite of the danger, but I need you to remain behind this time,” Elerian said earnestly. “Once I pass through the gate, I must close it, for it will require too much of my power and concentration to hold it open against my return. You must use the ring I give you to guide me back when I reopen it.”

“Give it to Dacien or one of the others,” suggested Ascilius firmly. His resolute tone indicated he would accept no argument from Elerian that would require him to remain behind.

“Have you forgotten the warning you gave me only a few moments ago?” Elerian gently rebuked the Dwarf. “These rings are dangerous, you said to me. Now you would have me press one of them into the first hand that would take it. You are the only one of the company I trust to resist its allure.”

“I will not be left behind,” insisted Ascilius stubbornly. Elerian said nothing, but his gray eyes held the Dwarf with an unwavering look.

“You ask too much,” protested Ascilius after a moment, but he remained trapped by his own words. Finally, grumbling to himself, he chose one of the rings. Elerian took the other and then they both set their rings on the index finger of their left hands. As they did so, the gems on both rings suddenly shone with a white light.

“The bond is forged,” Elerian said quietly. As the lights in the gems faded, he suddenly smiled at Ascilius and spoke. “You may find your ring useful if we survive our adventure. Put it near your belt.” Ascilius did as Elerian asked, and the gem in its silver mounting blazed with a sudden light when it drew near to his money pouch.

“These rings will find more than each other,” continued Elerian. “Your ring will find gold, silver and anything else you might desire under the earth. In the dark, the gem will light your way should other light fail. I thought it would be a useful gift for a Dwarf.”

“When do you mean to leave?” asked Ascilius unhappily, refusing to be cheered by the versatile attributes of his new ring.

“Soon,” said Elerian. “I will rest for a bit first, and then I will be on my way.” Rising and walking over to his pack, Elerian took out his cloak. After wrapping himself in it, he lay down in a corner at the rear of the cave and tired from his labors, fell into a rare, true sleep. While Elerian slept, Ascilius lit a small red mage fire in the center of the chamber and sat before it. As he stared distantly into the dancing flames, the look on his face was not a happy one.

When Elerian awoke after barely an hour's sleep, Ascilius was still sitting by the fire, absently staring into the flames. The others had joined him and were partaking of a breakfast of biscuits and bacon cooked in their fry pans. Outside the cave, Elerian was happy to hear the rain still pouring down.

“The Goblins will never succeed in tracking us here after all this water has fallen,” thought Elerian to himself as he rose in one lithe movement. Looking across the chamber, he saw Dacien watching him closely, his gray eyes filled with equal amounts of concern and determination. The Tarsian immediately approached and spoke to him.

“Ascilius has told me what you intend Elerian. We both agree that you should not go alone. When you set out, I will go with you.”

“I think that it would be best if I go alone,” replied Elerian, hoping to save Dacien from the future that he had seen in the orb. “I will be attempting a spell that is still largely untried. Even if I succeed in opening a portal to Anthea’s cell, you know the grim ending my sphere predicted for you if you accompany me.”

“I am resolved to go with you no matter what the risk or outcome,” answered Dacien firmly, his blue eyes bright with the strength of his resolve.

“It seems that the destiny I saw will not be denied,” thought Elerian sadly to himself. Out of the corner of his right eye, he noticed Ascilius watching him and Dacien closely, a restless, impatient look in his dark eyes. “He will change his mind in a moment and demand to go too,” thought Elerian uneasily to himself, noting with concern the unhappy look on the Dwarf’s bearded face.

“Let us go then,” he said quickly to Dacien. “Keep Acris ready to your hand.” Dacien at once drew Acris, gripping the silver hilt of the sword with his right hand. Triarus, who had risen along with Cordus and Cyricus, now spoke up hesitantly, a look of deep concern in his dark eyes.

“Let me come too,” he begged Dacien in a quavering voice.

“Not this time,” replied Dacien kindly, for although the former slave was no warrior, he had grown fond of him. “Remain here with Ascilius and the others until we return.”

“Take care then my lord,” replied Triarus uneasily. “It is dangerous for ordinary folks to meddle in the affairs of mages. No offense to you my lord Elerian,” he added uneasily. “I know you mean only the best for us.”

“No offense taken, for your words have a great deal of truth in them,” replied Elerian gravely.

“I will return and my sister with me,” Dacien reassured Triarus, for despite the foretelling of Elerian’s sphere, he had not abandoned all hope of success as Elerian had. Elerian now turned to Ascilius who had extinguished his mage fire before rising to join the rest of his companions who had all gathered around Elerian and Dacien.

“It is hard to leave him without a proper goodbye, for he has been a good and true friend, but I can think of no other way to save his life,” thought Elerian sadly to himself as he watched Ascilius approach.

“I do not know when we will return,” he said aloud to the Dwarf, masking with difficulty the melancholy he felt at this final parting between them. “If you are forced to move before Dacien and I return, keep to our plan to travel west over the Murus. As long as you wear your ring I will find you.”

“Take no unnecessary chances,” replied Ascilius grimly and unhappily.

Afraid to make any reply lest he betray the fact that he did not expect to return, Elerian turned away from Ascilius and faced west with Dacien by his left side. From his memory, which forgot nothing, he brought forth the picture of the cell which his orb had shown him. Silently, he formed the words of the portal spell which he had crafted, drawing on the power stored in his master ring as he did so. Lacking mage sight, his companions did not see the dark orb that flew from the fingers of his right hand, spreading out to form a man high opening rimmed by a thin, gleaming line of black. They did see, however, the clear space that appeared within the boundaries of the portal. Through that opening, they saw the dark cell where Anthea was imprisoned.

“Let me hold her one last time then, and I will be content,” mused Elerian to himself as he drew both his long, silver-hafted knives and leapt through the gate. Dacien followed quickly behind him, as if he feared that Elerian might have a change of heart and force him to remain behind. The magical opening disappeared the moment the Tarsian passed through it. To their companions left waiting in the cave, Elerian and Dacien appeared to have vanished into thin air.

“I should have gone with him,” was Ascilius’s regretful thought as he sat down cross-legged on the floor of the cave, prepared to wait as long as necessary for the moment when he would be called upon to guide Elerian back. Silently, his cousins and Triarus sat down next to him, all of them facing the place where Elerian and Dacien had disappeared, a look of mingled uncertainty and trepidation on all three of their faces.

TYRANUS

When Elerian leapt through the portal, the changeling guarding the cell stood on all fours on the far side of the stone bier that occupied the center of the room. Despite his foreknowledge of the mortal wound that it would inflict on him, Elerian faced it resolutely as Dacien set foot in the chamber several feet behind him. Displaying enormous power and celerity, the licantrope suddenly sprang over the bier. Teeth bared and ropes of saliva dripping from its fanged jaws, it closed powerful, clawed fingers on Elerian’s right arm and left shoulders, bearing him over onto his back. As Elerian fell heavily onto the stone floor of the chamber with the changeling crouched on top of him, Dacien was forced to leap to his right to avoid being knocked over as well. When the licantrope lowered its shaggy head to rip out his throat with its long, yellowed fangs, Elerian immediately jammed his left forearm, with its chain mail covering, into the beast’s mouth, feeling at once a tremendous pressure on his flesh and bone as the licantrope clamped down with its steely jaws, its teeth grinding against the tortured links of his mail as it forced them deep into the leather shirt that he wore beneath the armor. The tremendous compression numbed Elerian’s arm and hand until, through the hideous, muffled growls of the changeling, he heard a ringing sound as Rasor fell to the floor of the chamber, involuntarily released by his left hand.

Letting go of Elerian’s left shoulder but maintaining its powerful grip on his right arm, the changeling clawed at Elerian’s chest with the long black claws sprouting from its right front paw, rending the links of his mail and tearing apart the leather shirt beneath them. Its lambent yellow eyes burning with the lust to kill and devour, the licantrope plunged its long black talons deep into Elerian’s chest, the wounds sending intense, stabbing pains shooting through his body and mind. To the licantrope’s left, Dacien had now recovered his footing. Before the changeling could begin the downward stroke that would tear Elerian’s vital organs from his chest, he valiantly plunged Acris deep into the left side of the hulking, shaggy creature, striking just below its left shoulder. As the sword sank down through the licantrope’s coarse black pelt and into its heart, the silver threads of argentum engraved in its blade flared brightly as Acris drank deeply of Dacien’s life force. Greatly weakened, the Tarsian staggered and fell to his knees, his suddenly nerveless fingers releasing their grip on Acris’s hilt, the involuntary action likely saving his life, for it prevented the sword from draining all of his vital essence.

With magical steel burning its heart, the licantrope threw back its wolfish head and uttered a long, agonized howl as it started back from Elerian, its involuntary motion freeing his right arm as well as withdrawing the creature’s claws from his chest. Instantly, he raised up Acer with his right hand and arm, feeling a familiar weakness sweep through him as he plunged the knife’s long, bright blade through the licantrope’s lower jaw and then up into its brainpan. As a stream of black blood suddenly flowed down its hairy throat, the changeling shuddered and then lunged down with mouth agape, intending to seize Elerian’s face in its jaws. Dismayed by the vitality of the creature, Elerian let go of Acer and seized the changeling by its hairy throat with his both hands, fending it off with his stiffened arms.
When the smallest finger of his left hand brushed against cold metal, he hastily shifted his grip to avoid touching the collar worn by the beast.

In spite of the hot blood scalding his hands, Elerian stubbornly maintained his grip on the licantrope’s throat, the creature's foul breath washing over him as its long, yellow teeth clashed together again and again only scant inches from his face. The unnatural strength of the changeling slowly began to force his trembling arms down, for he still was not recovered fully from the loss of the power Acer had drained from him. As the shaggy head of the licantrope drew inexorably nearer to his face, its hungry yellow eyes fixed on his own, Elerian felt no fear, only a sense of bewilderment.

“Did I misread the orb,” he wondered as he waited stoically for the last crushing bite that would end his life. Close enough now for their fangs to graze his left cheek, for Elerian turned his head to gain a last few seconds of life, the wildly snapping jaws of the changeling clashed above his face but failed to gain the last few inches they needed to end his life, despite the licantrope’s frantic efforts to lower them further. “Its wounds have finally begun to sap its enormous vitality,” thought Elerian wearily to himself when he saw that the fierce yellow light burning in the licantrope’s eyes had begun to dim and its strength to wane. When he heard its hoarse death rattle, he gathered the last of his strength and pushed the creature away to his left before releasing it. Its fearsome head lolling limply on its powerful shoulders, the licantrope fell onto its right side on the stone floor of the cell. Hardly able to believe that the creature was dead, Elerian climbed wearily to his feet and helped Dacien to rise, for his companion was still on his knees.

“I am not injured,” said Dacien weakly. “It was the sword. It took all my strength away when I used it.”

“The beast’s vitality was sustained by powerful magic,” replied Elerian wearily. “It is fortunate that you let go of Acris or the sword might have taken your life also.”

“Fortunate yes, but I did not do it on purpose,” replied Dacien tiredly. “My hand slipped away when I swooned.” Dacien now fell silent, overcome with dismay as he realized the extent of Elerian’s injuries for the first time. His companion’s left arm hung limp and blood coursed down his face and dripped onto his chest, for the licantrope had laid open his left cheek to the bone with  its fangs. Both of Elerian’s hands and wrists were badly blistered from the creature's hot blood, and worst of all, frothy blood bubbled through some of the tears in the chain mail covering his chest, welling up from the wounds inflicted by the licantrope’s long, scimitar claws.

“The beast's talons reached his lungs,” thought Dacien grimly to himself. “He cannot survive for long in this state. A man would already have succumbed to those injuries.”

Coughing up red, frothy blood, Elerian reached for the silver flask which always hung at his belt. He was burning with impatience to see if Anthea lay on the platform, but he knew that he would not survive for much longer if he left his injuries untended. After opening the container, he took a deep draught of the aqua vitae contained in the flask. At once, some of the paleness left his cheeks and new strength coursed through his veins. He passed the flask to Dacien who also took a draught, the aqua vitae bringing warmth and new strength to him also.

“Watch over me for a moment,” Elerian said to Dacien before losing himself in a healing trance in which he dealt, superficially, only with the wounds to his lungs, for time was precious to him now. The future was not fixed, therefore, there was no certainty that events would unfold exactly as he had seen them in the orb. If the guards he had seen in the hall outside the cell door entered the chamber while he was unaware, he and Dacien would be easy prey for them.

Despite Elerian’s concerns, no one tried to enter the chamber while he healed himself. There were, in truth, many guards hidden in the cells that lined the long corridor that led to Anthea’s prison, but they had paid no attention to the sounds that had issued from her dungeon when Elerian battled the licantrope, for the guardian often raged about her cell when it was hungry or angry, howling or beating on the door according to its mood.

After stopping the bleeding in his lungs and lightly healing them, Elerian came back to himself.
R
etrieving his knives, he severed the licantrope’s collar with Acer’s keen blade, before walking over to the stone platform in the center of the cell. Dacien followed close behind Elerian, both rescuers full of apprehension over what they might discover there. When he reached the bier, Elerian touched the fingers of his right hand to the crystal dome that covered it, finding that it was cold and smooth against his skin, without flaws of any kind. Where its surface was not fouled by the breath and saliva of the guardian, for the licantrope guarding the cell had often gazed long and hungrily at the still figure beneath it, the cover was clear as water.

“Is it Anthea that lies here?” wondered Elerian anxiously, for the filth on the crystal rendered indistinct the head and shoulders of the figure that lay beneath it. Cleaning a portion of the dome with the palm of his right hand, Elerian looked eagerly through the cloudy crystal and saw Anthea's pale face beneath it, the garish red light of the mage lamps which lit the room giving her features a bloody hue. No breath that he could discern stirred her chest.

“We have come too late,” said Elerian sadly to Dacien who looked intently down at his sister over Elerian’s right shoulder, as if he could somehow will her to breathe again. Closing his eyes, Elerian pressed his forehead against the barrier that separated him from his beloved, feeling a desolation in his heart as cold and barren as the plains of the Gargol’s realm. After several long moments, he felt Dacien’s left hand pressing against his right shoulder.

“We should go Elerian,” said Dacien sadly. “There is nothing more that we can do here. Our time is now better spent in planning our revenge against Torquatus in recompense for what he has taken from us.” Wearily Elerian raised his head and spoke, his voice bleak as a winter night.

“Bring Acris to me, Dacien. Alive or dead, I mean to hold her one last time.” Leaning wearily against the bier, Elerian waited while Dacien fetched his sword. When the Tarsian drew the bright blade from the body of the changeling, black blood dripped from its polished surface, steaming in the chill air of the dungeon when it struck the stone floor. After Dacien pressed the silver hilt of Acris into his right hand, Elerian stepped back from the bier. Raising Acris high, he suddenly brought the sword’s edge down on the portion of the crystal cover near Anthea's feet. The tracery of argentum engraved in the blade flashed silvery white and a sound like a clear chime rang out, but not the least scratch appeared on the cover.

“Magically hardened,” thought Elerian to himself, wondering which Dwarf had turned traitor to his race by using forbidden spells to aid the Goblins. “It is fortunate that Ascilius taught me the remedy to this charm.” Reaching into his memory, he cast the counter spell that would restore the crystal to its natural state. Confidently, he struck again with Acris, but the result was the same as before. Even without the hardening spell, the crystal was still able to resist Acris’s magical blade.

Both frustrated and angry now, Elerian tried to thrust his sword's tip in between the crystal dome and the stone bier but was unable to find the least gap, for the two materials were fused inseparably together. He now bitterly regretted not bringing Ascilius and his hammer, for Fulmen would no doubt have made short work of the barrier that kept him from Anthea. With growing desperation, Elerian tried different spells, all of them aimed at removing or destroying the cover, but the crystal resisted all of them.

“There are other spells upon it besides those that I removed,” thought Elerian despairingly to himself. Taking a deep breath, he sought to clear his mind. The orb had shown him holding Anthea, therefore he must possess the means to free her body from its crystal coffin.

“We should leave while we can, Elerian, for we cannot remain undiscovered for much longer,” Dacien anxiously urged again as his disheartened companion rested his left palm on the cover of the bier, his longing gaze fixed on Anthea’s fair face. As Elerian stood there unmoving, desperately searching his mind for a way to destroy the barrier beneath his palm, drops of red blood fell from his cheek, sending a bloody rivulet down the smooth surface of the crystal cover. When Elerian shifted his left hand slightly to avoid sanguineous flow, a fiery gleam from his index finger suddenly attracted his attention when the facets of the gem that he wore there reflected the red mage lights that lit the room.

“Adamant!” thought Elerian to himself. “I have on my finger the hardest substance in the Middle realm.” Eagerly drawing the gem across the surface of the cover near Anthea’s waist, Elerian watched as the sharp facets of the stone cut deeply into the smooth surface of the crystal. After quickly scoring it again and again, intersecting one cut with another, he raised the hilt of Acris high in the air with both hands. With all his strength, he suddenly brought down the pommel against the cover. At the moment of impact, the argentum wrapped around the hilt of Acris grew suddenly warm in his hands and a blinding flash of white light filled the chamber, accompanied by a high, pure sound that reverberated through the cell as if a great glass bell had suddenly been rung. A sharp crack split the air as the crystal fractured where Elerian had scored it with his ring. Encouraged by the web of fissures that had appeared, he struck again, and the cover crumbled away into a heap of small, glittering shards that rang together with a high clear sound as they fell against each other. Both Elerian and Dacien started then when a high-pitched, keening wail suddenly filled the room.

The unexpected cry emanated from the stone figure of a lentulus crouched on a pedestal set against the far wall of the chamber. When Elerian’s gaze was drawn to its nightmare face, the statue opened black eyes of polished jet, regarding him with an almost palpable malevolence. His third eye opened then, revealing a featureless crimson form conforming to the contours of the stone figure.

“A shade resides in the statue,” thought Elerian to himself in dismay, “a last hidden guardian to thwart my escape. It must have been asleep until I shattered the cover of the bier.”

With the guardian’s wail piercing his ears, Elerian hurriedly handed Acris to Dacien before brushing the shards of crystal from Anthea's pale, thin face with his right hand. His last faint hope that she might still live faded away then, for he felt no warmth where his gentle fingers brushed her skin.