The Quest (The Hidden Realm Book 5) (8 page)

“I am,” replied Elerian firmly to the Dwarf king’s query.

“I, too, will dare the passageway,” volunteered Dacien.

“And I also,” said Ascilius in his deep voice.

“It is a mistake to let these three fools open the Black Gate, brother,” Eonis remonstrated, his voice full of disapproval. “If the creature still lurks in the tunnel, they will never see the light of day again if they enter its domain. It may even escape again once the door is open, bringing ruin to our kingdom.”

“I have already given my permission, Eonis and I will not rescind it,” said Dardanus mildly. “These three are embarking on a noble quest and are deserving of all the aid we can give them.”

“A fool’s errand rather,” muttered Eonis sarcastically to himself, but he made no more objections aloud. 

Turning back to Elerian, Dardanus spoke to him again. “I do not wish to try your patience with further talk, but if you win through the passageway, it will be to your advantage to know somewhat of the lands that lie to the west of it. At the western end of the tunnel, you will find a long valley that is full of large rocks and surrounded by steep mountains. Proceed with caution through that place, for there may still be Trolls living in the heights that surround it. Six days of brisk walking will bring you to the banks of the Arvina and the end of the valley. Cross the river where you can and travel west through the mountains, once again keeping watch for Trolls. Two days travel, will bring you to a pass between two peaks. Beyond it lies the edge of the Broken Lands which men call Terra Fractus.”

“I am familiar with the Broken Lands, having passed through them before when Ascilius and I escaped from Nefandus,” said Elerian quietly. He kept his face impassive, but his heart had sunk at the mention of more than eight days of travel just to reach the Broken Lands, each day another day of torment for Anthea.

“I will say no more then,” said Dardanus. “Is there anything that you require, Elerian, before you leave Iulius?”

“You have already been more than generous,” replied Elerian. “I ask only that you keep this in case I return for it.” Elerian handed Dardanus the leather saddlebags laden with the necklace and the other treasure that Dardanus had given him.

“I will keep them safe against your return,” Dardanus assured Elerian.

“You may as well return those riches to your treasury,” said Eonis crustily. “He will never return to claim them.” Dardanus turned and frowned impatiently at his brother.

“Your words are ungracious Eonis and do not reflect well on you,” he said in mild rebuke.

“I will speak the truth no matter how blunt it may sound,” replied Eonis stubbornly.

With a look of resignation on his craggy face, Dardanus turned back to the three companions. “Pay no attention to my brother, for he has suffered much lately. As for myself, I give the three of you my blessing. May it keep you safe on your quest which I hope will be successful despite the grave dangers that you face.” Solemnly, he clasped forearms with Elerian and Dacien but Ascilius he embraced. Eonis looked moodily into the fire the whole time.

“Uncle what of us,” said Cordus, unexpectedly rising out of his chair. His brother stood up beside him. The two were as alike as could be, with dark hair and eyes and brown beards that flowed down over their belts. “Cyricus and I also wish to accompany Ascilius.”

“I forbid it!” shouted Eonis at once. “You will not throw away your lives in this mad venture.” His two sons stood stubbornly before him, their resolve in no way weakened by his angry disapproval.

“Tales will be told and songs sung of this quest, father,” said Cyricus. “Cordus and I wish to have our names mentioned in them.”

“Let one stay and one go,” suggested Dardanus to Eonis.

“We have not been separated in our whole life,” objected Cyricus at once. “We will go together and make our part in the heroes' tales to come.”

“If you survive the passageway, you are both more likely to end up in some Troll's cook pot than to become heroes,” shouted Eonis in exasperation. “On the slim chance that you do succeed, how will you return to Iulius?”

“Torquatus will not expect us to travel west, therefore we will first cross the Murus if we succeed in freeing Anthea from her prison,” interjected Ascilius, unflinchingly meeting the angry glare Eonis directed his way. “The Goblins rule the lands beyond the mountains, but I have it on good authority that they are spread thin. The small company that I plan to lead should have no trouble reaching the western seacoast where a ship can be bought or stolen. It should be no great feat after that to sail south to Tarsius and return through that country to the east pass through the Nivalis. Cordus and Cyricus can then enter the Caldaria through the eastern passageway which still remains a secret to the Goblins.” More arguing between Eonis and his sons immediately followed Ascilius’s words. Secretly, Ascilius hoped that his uncle would prevail, for he had thought to take Falco with him on the quest.

“He would be the better choice to accompany us,” he thought to himself. “These two young fellows fought well in the retreat from Galenus, but we may encounter more than pitched battles in the dangerous adventure we are embarking on. Who knows how they will react in the face of magical assaults?” Despite his misgivings, Ascilius kept his doubts to himself, however, unwilling to deny his cousins their chance for adventure if they could convince their father to let them go.

In the end Cordus and Cyricus had their way. Looking defeated and miserable, Eonis finally gave them permission to accompany Ascilius. Heedless of their father's grief, the eyes of the two young Dwarves flashed with excitement at the thought of the adventures ahead of them

“If all is settled, we will be on our way then,” said Ascilius quietly to Dardanus. “May we meet again in better times.” His face drawn into somber lines, he led his small company from the room, leaving his uncles to sit in pensive silence by the fire, one hopeful of a good outcome to Elerian’s quest, and the other already grieving, for he had no expectation that his sons would ever return alive to Iulius.

THE DEPARTURE

Ascilius stopped first at the chambers where Dacien and Elerian had left their weapons. He then led his two companions to the stables by a circuitous route that kept them out of the public eye. To keep his whereabouts even more of a secret, Elerian cast an illusion over himself and Dacien, giving them both the appearance of middle-aged Dwarves, their brown hair and beards lightly speckled with gray. When they arrived at the stables, Ascilius led Dacien and Elerian to a deserted potion of the chamber where two carriages, each drawn by a pair of sleek black ponies, were waiting for them on one of the alleys that ran between the stalls. Falco stood by the door to the second carriage, and a driver sat on the front seat of each vehicle, Dwarves Ascilius knew and trusted.

“Your packs are already inside the carriage boots,” said Falco to Ascilius as he approached the carriage. Neither Falco nor anyone else was aware that, at that moment, they were being watched from behind a nearby pillar by a pair of cold black eyes. Having gotten wind of Ascilius’s meeting with his uncles, a meeting to which he had not been invited, Herias had followed him and his two companions after they left the king’s chambers. Adept at magic of a kind that Dwarves normally took no interest in, he had cast an illusion spell over himself, disguising himself as a large rat so that he would not attract undue attention as he scurried from one shadowed recess to another. He strained his ears now as Ascilius began to speak.

“Meet the sixth member of our company,” said Ascilius to the others as he opened the door to the second carriage. Triarus, the slave Ascilius had rescued during the retreat from Galenus, hesitantly stepped down out of the vehicle. His long black hair and beard had been washed and cut, and he was dressed in decent brown pants and a brown hooded tunic of linen.

“I asked Triarus to accompany us,” said Ascilius to his companions. “He wishes to return home, and his knowledge of the lands west of the Murus will be helpful to us. It was he who helped me plan our escape route from the mountains to the western sea.” Behind his pillar, Herias’s ears pricked up.

“Why is Ascilius planning to travel over the Murus with the sons of Eonis?” he wondered to himself. “What is his purpose and who are the strangers with him, I wonder? I do not recognize the human or the other Dwarves by his side.”

After the members of the company greeted Triarus, they took seats in the carriages. Elerian and Dacien entered the second vehicle with Triarus. Cordus and Cyricus sat next to each other in the first carriage. Ascilius now drew close to Falco, as if he wished their conversation to be as private as possible. When he began to speak, Herias eased farther around his pillar, seeking to hear him better.

“Keep watch over my uncles and Herias,” said Ascilius softly to Falco.

“I had rather go with you,” replied Falco. “It seems that I alone am eternally fated to be the one who is left behind,” he observed in a melancholy voice.

“Left to my own devices, I would have gladly taken you with me,” replied Ascilius uncomfortably. “The matter was taken out of my hands when Eonis gave Cordus and Cyricus permission to accompany me. You must remain behind now, for you are the last of our house besides Herias. He is clever, but he is no warrior and would make a poor king in these troubled times. If anything happens to my uncles, you must help him with the defense of Iulius. It is an important role,” Ascilius assured Falco guiltily.

“Trade places with me then,” said Falco with a sudden twinkle in his eyes. Ascilius looked so uncomfortable at the suggestion that Falco smiled. “Go, I but jest,” he said, warmly clasping forearms with Ascilius. “Good luck to you and all your companions.” As Ascilius turned to enter the first carriage, a flicker of motion caught his right eye as Herias retreated behind his pillar.

Herias started when Ascilius said with a frown, “I think there is a rat behind that pillar Falco.”

“Arturo will deal with him,” replied Falco, calling over, with a soft, sibilant sound, one of the cats that prowled the stables. The brindled feline that came to Falco’s call was easily forty pounds in weight with claws and teeth to match its size, for Dwarf cats are larger than those that are kept by men. 

“Get him Arturo,” said Falco to the cat while pointing at the pillar which concealed Herias. Fierce mouser that he was, Arturo promptly bounded toward the pillar. Seeing what approached him, Herias fled in a panic, keeping the column between himself and Ascilius and Falco to obstruct their view of him. Barely a score of yards from the pillar, however, a large paw armed with sickle claws swiped across his buttocks when Arturo finally closed the gap between them. As if branded with fire, Herias gave a tremendous bound which again carried him out of Arturo’s reach, at the same time emitting a loud yell which his illusion spell transformed into a high-pitched squeak. When his feet touched the ground again, Herias fled deeper into the stables, skimming over the floor in long, leaps with Arturo in hot pursuit.

“That rat will not trouble us again,” said Falco to Ascilius when he heard Herias squeak. He was wrong about that, but he had no way of knowing it at the time.

“I had best be on my way then,” said Ascilius before seating himself across from his two cousins. He felt a twinge of disappointment that Elerian was still avoiding him, choosing to sit in the other carriage with Dacien and Triarus, but he was no longer worried that Elerian would slip too deeply into the dream paths.

“He will not dare to sleep while I am around,” he thought to himself with a great deal of satisfaction that was tempered by sadness, for he had begun to think that their friendship might truly be over. “I do not think that he will readily forgive the promises that I forced him to make even though they were for his own good,” thought Ascilius unhappily to himself as he knocked on the wood behind his head to signal the driver to be off. Stoically, he closed his eyes, hoping to fall asleep, for the Black Gate was eighty miles away, a full day and night of travel if they only paused long enough to change teams every four hours at the king’s way stations. Across from Ascilius, Cordus and Cyricus remained awake, talking softly between themselves, for they were much too excited to sleep.

Following one behind the other, the two carriages climbed the main ramp to the first level of the city. When they exited the ramp, the two vehicles entered the street that led to the front gate of Iulius. There was already heavy traffic on the main thoroughfare, but no one remarked on the two carriages as they rolled smoothly over the stone road. In the second carriage, Elerian, who sat across from Dacien and Triarus, had closed his eyes to avoid conversation with his companions, but he was not asleep, for he did not think it wise to walk the dream paths again in his present unsettled state. Awake, the thought of the torture Anthea was enduring weighed heavily on his mind, filling him with frustrated anger and despair. An image of Torquatus suddenly appeared before his mind’s eye, his pale, cruel face twisted into a sneer.

“I have a gift for you,” he said with great good humor as he cast a heap of bloody, severed fingers, toes, hands, and feet at Elerian. Almost, he lost control of himself at the sight of the gory, horrifying image that filled his mind. Only by exerting all his self-control was he able to refrain from leaping out of the carriage and springing into the air in his hawk form so that he could speed to Anthea’s side.

“I must keep to Ascilius’s route,” he reminded himself, relaxing his tensed body and calming his thoughts as his carriage passed without incident through the front gates of the city before heading south. “The orb has already shown me the uselessness of straying from that path. The best that I can manage now is to urge the others to make haste in hopes of reducing Anthea’s time of torment.” Drawing back the curtain from the window on his right side, he brooded over the peaceful pastoral scenes that met his eyes, contrasting them with his own troubled thoughts and Anthea’s desperate situation.

In Iulius, after finally giving Arturo the slip, Herias was finally able to shed his illusion and return to his apartment. Out of breath, disheveled and smarting from a dozen deep scratches on his buttocks and thighs, he breathed a sigh of relief once he closed the heavy, wooden door which gave access to his apartment.

“I hope that miserable creature chokes on a hairball,” he thought sourly to himself, regarding the scratches he had sustained on his hands in his vain efforts to fend off his feline pursuer. His dark eyes glittering with hate as he tended to his wounds, cleaning them and then covering them with a healing ointment. After putting on a fresh pair of trousers, he limped restlessly about his parlor, not daring to test his injured posterior against even a soft cushion. His eye was caught then by an envelope on the floor next to the door, its flap sealed with black wax.

“A message from Cordux!” he thought to himself as he stooped and seized the envelope with his right hand. “I wonder what news he has for me.” Eagerly Herias opened the envelope and read the first few lines of the letter from his confederate.

“This part is old news,” he thought to himself, a frown creasing his pale brow. “He tells me that Orianus’s daughter has been taken by the Goblins, but I had word of that yesterday from the Dwarves released by Torquatus. This part, though, is new. Dacien, the son of Orianus is in Iulius in the company of Ascilius. All becomes clear now,” thought Herias to himself, rubbing his soft, pale hands together with satisfaction. “I will wager my fortune that the stranger Dwarves who accompanied Ascilius were none other than Dacien and the outlander disguised by an illusion spell. Ascilius and the fools who accompany him must plan to rescue Orianus’s daughter. They must have gotten permission from Dardanus to open the Black Gate, for all other exits to the valley are sealed.” Herias had not thought of the passageway under the western Nivalis in many years, but he knew the history of that dark place well as did every other Dwarf in Iulius.

“Ascilius is a greater fool than even I imagined,” thought Herias contemptuously to himself. “If the old tales are true, he and his wretched companions will never emerge from that passageway. Only my uncles and Falco will then stand between me and the kingship of the Dwarves.”

With the sallow fingers of his left hand, Herias thoughtfully stroked his thick black beard. “Still, I must anticipate every calamity that might thwart my ambitions. The southerner has proved to be a slippery sort, wriggling out of every catastrophe. I must make certain that I am rid of him and Ascilius both lest they frustrate my plans again. Despite the risk it is time, I think, to speak directly with Torquatus since I am no longer able to use an intermediary. He hates Ascilius almost as much as I do. If my uncle and his companions somehow win their way through the passageway, I am sure that he will prepare a fitting reception for them.”

Seating himself in a leather chair, Herias brooded over an ornate ring of silver that he was forced to wear on the smallest finger of his right hand, for it had been made to fit fingers more slender than his. The ring sported an enormous, faceted red ruby and had come out of Fimbria in the old days, after that kingdom was destroyed by Torquatus. He had come across it by chance many years ago in an unauthorized inventory of Fundanus’s treasure room in Ennodius. Already a powerful mage, he had recognized the magical aura of the ring at once. After stealing it from his uncle’s treasury, he had finally ferreted out its secret. The spells embedded in the argentum which made up the band opened a small portal when they were properly activated. This portal, an opening the size of his face which hovered above the ring, skimmed, at his command, above the ground like a bird in flight, revealing to Herias’s eyes all that was behind it. Consumed by ambition, he had used the ring to discover Ascilius’s location in Tarsius many years ago, passing the information to an Ancharian of dubious reputation who was an acquaintance of his. He suspected that the Ancharian was a confidant of the Goblins and when news came that Ascilius was presumed dead, killed in a Goblin ambush, he was ecstatic. His hopes of gaining the throne of Ennodius were dashed, however, when his plan to let Eboria into the city went awry. His eyes had then turned to the kingship of Iulius. Suspecting that the emissary of Torquatus was more than he seemed, he had brought the false Ancharian into the king’s presence and then contrived a way to make himself scarce. His plan would have worked flawlessly if not for the meddling of Ascilius’s foreign companion.

“Who would have thought that he would have the power to defeat a lentulus,” thought Herias to himself as he brooded over his ring. Coming to a decision at last, he donned a dark cloak and picked up an ornate cane made of polished rowan shod head and foot with gleaming argentum. With his left hand, he pulled his hood far down over his face before walking down to the stables. After casting an illusion which changed his face and figure, he hired a carriage to take him out of the city. Following his directions, the driver, a stolid Dwarf well known to Herias, left the main road to follow a grass-covered track that led through a game park near the city. Cursing every bump that further pained his wounded posterior, Herias waited impatiently until the carriage reached the end of the track.

Stiffly, favoring his injuries, he exited the vehicle. After instructing the incurious driver to wait, Herias proceeded deeper into the wood on foot, feeling again the discomfort which plagued him when he was surrounded by growing things instead of honest stone. In a remote grove, after pulling his hood down low over his face, he cast the spell that brought his ring to life. He did not possess mage sight, so he did not see the silvery glow which suffused the talisman, but he did see a round opening, perhaps six inches across and resembling a clear window, appear at the level of his eyes. Through the portal, Herias saw a solitary, dark tower whose summit was carved into the shape of a Goblin skull, baleful red fires burning in its eye sockets. Cautious as a fly which treads at the very edge of a spider’s web, wary of the least tremor in its threads which might signal the approach of the spider, Herias directed his portal into the tower, moving from room to room through open doors until he came to a black walled chamber lit with crimson mage lights. A tall, slender Uruc dressed all in black sat silently on a dark throne in the center of the room, the rubies set in his iron crown gleaming like drops of blood. Anger welled up in Herias at the sight of Torquatus.