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by
Marc H. Wyman & Chris Bogues
Two
weeks ago…
“A
special price for you, Master Wizard!” The Tonomai merchant’s swarthy
face broke out in a smarmy grin. “Only forty aryel, that’s a
bargain!”
Barandas
the Magnificent, self-styled, doubtfully weighed the small, triangular
item in his hand. Its golden sheen caught the light of the sun, sparkling
beautifully and enhancing the inscriptions snaking along its sides.
“I’m not sure if it’s that much of a bargain. This isn’t even real
gold, it’s been enchanted by a cleric,” he muttered.
“But
you like it!” the Tonomai beamed. “It drew you from all the stalls in
the market to my humble booth, and I –“ His smile suddenly
deteriorated into crestfallen dismay. “I offered you such a marvelous
bargain! A magical object, a – how do you say in your tongue? – an
appliance. For many decades it has been in the collection of a wise wizard
of our land, until he fell on hard times and had to sell it. Who knows
what miracles are kept within it? Master Wizard, you must have
it!”
Barandas
chuckled. “Oh, sure, and all your friends in the other stalls would say
the same thing about their appliances.” Negligently he dropped
the item back on the display table. “Maybe some of theirs will be really
to my liking.”
For
a moment it seemed as if the merchant would just accept and wait for
better clientele, then he nodded, smiling once more. “Can you read the
inscription? It is an old tongue, that was spoken by the most distant
ancestors of mine, but I can tell you what it says.”
“And
what does it say?” Barandas answered offhandedly, as if he couldn’t
wait to move on to another stall.
The
Tonomai raised the item, squinted at the symbols, then he said in ominous
tones, “Whosoever shall find my secret, shall unleash the powers of
the beast. His shall be the strength of the dragon, the speed of the
tiger, the agility of the weasel; all shall belong to he who knows me.
Well, Master Wizard, what say you?”
“I
say,” the wizard shrugged, “that you’re lying. The writing is
Keroullian, from the land that now is Rek’atrednu, and it’s a simple
riddle.”
“Oh,”
the merchant grinned, the smarminess suddenly wiped from his face. “Half
an aryel?”
Barandas
shrugged, dug in a pocket of his robe and withdrew a few bronze coins.
“Now that sounds like a bargain,” he said as he handed over the
money and received the item.
“A
pleasure to do business with you, Master Wizard.”
“Likewise,”
Barandas nodded and began to saunter out of the market, looking to all the
world as if there was nothing on his mind but enjoying the warm day. Once
the rustle and bustle was behind him, though, he hastened into a shadowed
alleyway.
In
his right hand he still held the triangular item. With his left, he
produced another object, gleaming gold, that seemed almost identical to
the first. A grin spread on his face as he pushed the two items closer –
and suddenly they snapped together, forming a single object. And the
tingle that Barandas had felt since the first moment he had touched either
of the objects grew stronger.
He
slowly turned about. After completing one revolution, he looked toward the
southeast. In that direction, the tingle had been the most powerful.
“Well,
my dear merchant,” the wizard grinned, “you have no idea how close you
were with your so-called ‘translation’. Powers of the beast…
And they shall all be mine!”
Today…
“You’re
very impolite, Master Cornell,” the alreu Flink piped and cast a most
accusing look at the warrior seated across from him on a pile of blankets.
If one listened closely, one might actually imagine muffled words coming
from beneath the pile.
Cornell
of Cayaboré shrugged and leaned against the wall behind him, hands folded
behind his head. “It’s quiet,” was all the explanation he was
willing to give.
“Oh,
and I suppose you just gag everyone that you meet when you want quiet! You
haven’t done that to Gabe, and you most certainly have not gagged me!”
“What
a tempting idea,” the Cayaborean said, looking dangerously at the small,
spindly creature.
The
alreu rolled his large eyes meaningfully. “Oh, you don’t mean that,”
he waved the thought away. “And my friends really cannot help
themselves. My goodness, sir, just imagine if you had spent years
trapped inside a monstrous beast, being that beast and killing and
murdering everyone who happens to pass by and just wants a good, nice
conversation! That’s so awful, so schrecklich, and my friends
just need to talk!“
“Your
friends,” Cornell muttered, “are getting on my nerves. Why don’t you
try carrying the shield for a while?”
Flink
looked aghast. “Sir, it is your shield! You saved them from the
beast, when you sucked them into the shield! I would never presume
to take your place, much as I would enjoy talking to them!”
“Yeah,
of course you wouldn’t,” Cornell grumbled and returned to staring at
the slightly overcast sky of Tonomat. Below the pile of blankets, the
noises from the shield were getting louder, three voices crying out for
the cover to be drawn from them. And if he did, all he’d hear would be a
shower of complaints about being in the dark for that long. The Gods alone
knew how the poor souls could see anything, ensorceled into an
elfwood shield as they were. But they could see, and what was worse, they
could speak.
All
the way from the ancient temple at the edge of the Elfadil Desert to this
small town somewhere in the Tonomai Empire, they had rarely taken a pause
in talking to him. Nev, the former accountant, who clearly never liked
anything; Phindar, one time caravan leader and priest of Decalleigh, who
always had one more anecdote to tell, no matter how annoyingly similar it
was to the previous ones. And then there was Halla Valfrey, the Shield
Maiden from Keroull.
Cornell
still didn’t know what exactly a shield maiden was, or what the
connection with the elfwood shield was. Which was probably part of the
reason why he liked Halla. She had not told him her entire life
story, in fact she had been quiet most of the time while Nev and Phindar
had been going on about this and that and this and that and…
Well,
there had to be an end to this endless chatter, hadn’t there? Impolite
or not, after more than three weeks he deserved a break!
“Marvelous
news, Cornell, Flink!” a baritone voice interrupted the Cayaborean’s
thoughts, and when he looked up he saw a giant of a man looming over him,
garbed in leather that was much too warm for the local temperatures –
which hardly fazed him at all. A large battle-axe was on his back, the
blade peeking through the shaggy blond mane of hair. “I found us
something to do!”
“Gabe,”
Cornell shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked at his barbarian
friend, “you were supposed to buy provisions for the rest of our
journey. We agreed to travel straight to Cayaboré, didn’t we?”
The
barbarian shrugged. “The cave’s on the way, so I thought you
wouldn’t mind.”
“Which
cave?!” Cornell shouted.
“My
goodness, sir,” Flink chimed in, “is something wrong? You are only
loud if there is danger about, aren’t you and – Oh, dear! Are there
monsters? Where? Can I see them?!”
The
Cayaborean held up his hand, glanced at the alreu, and for a wonder, the
little creature fell quiet, staring at the hand with utter intrigue.
“Gabe,” Cornell said slowly, forcing his voice to be level, “what
cave are you talking about? And what is it that you have found for us to do?”
“A
task of honor and acclaim!” the barbarian said proudly. “We will
travel south to a deep and dangerous cave that is guarded by sorcery and
magic, and we will break through the barriers as the first mortals to ever
do so! No sorcerous guard can stand against the might of bwyell,
not when combined with the force of the great Cornell of Cayaboré!”
“Uh-huh.”
Gabe
apparently didn’t register the dubious glance of the Cayaborean as he
pointed over his shoulder down the road. “I met a wizard who told me of
this cave, and he will accompany us. He’s watching the provisions I
bought right now.”
Suddenly
Cornell shot up and grasped the barbarian’s right arm. “You left a
stranger with our provisions?! Not with the money, too?!”
Gabe
shrugged once more and patted the axe on his back. “The wizard knows
what bwyell will do to him if he crosses us.”
The
barbarian’s assurance did little to ease Cornell’s mind. Quickly he
threw away the blankets and reached for the buckler-style shield below. He
didn’t even notice the angry comments of the spirits inside the elfwood
as he strapped it on and hurried down the road in the direction Gabe had
pointed out. Did that madman ever learn that some people thought they were
faster than his damned axe? ‘Bwyell will teach him never to do
that again,’ oh, yeah, right!
The
roads were full of people, Tonomai going about their business, wearing
wide hats casting blissful
shadows on their faces, and Cornell roughly shouldered them out of the
way, until he finally saw a wagon with two drawhorses in front of it. On
the seat sat a robed figure, a slim man of some twenty-five years with a
narrow face that managed to look at the same time openly friendly as it
maintained a weasely quality.
“See,”
Gabe puffed as he pulled up aside from Cornell, “the wizard knows that bwyell
would take his head off if he had stolen our property!”
Cornell
sighed, a sneer on his face. “Not that he’d be losing a vital part of
his anatomy.” Louder, he said, “You must have forgotten how to drive a
wagon, right? Or is there any other reason why you haven’t left town
already?”
The
robed figure turned around, beaming widely when he saw the Cayaborean,
then Barandas said, “Well, now, I’m happy to see you, too, old
friend.”
“Oh,”
Gabe said, disappointed, “you know each other.”
The
wizard laughed. Cornell was much less inclined to mirth as he drew a
grimace and muttered, “Longer than I care to remember. Why is it that I
keep running into you, Barandas?”
“Probably
your good fortune,” the wizard answered and pointed towards the load of
the wagon. “Let’s get this somewhere safe, and we can talk about the
little trip I have planned for us. Then we… Uhh, Cornell, would you mind
telling me what that is?”
“Why,
sir,” Flink said cheerfully, loaded down heavily by the blankets with
which Cornell had muffled the shield, “I am an alreu! May the gods bless
you, am I the first one of my species you meet? You must have so many
questions about me! Just ask, please ask, I will –“
“You’ve
gotta be kidding,” Barandas moaned. “Cornell, don’t tell me
you’re running around with a bloody alreu?! By the tides of
magic, I don’t watch you for a few days, and you get one of the
manlings?”
Cornell
sighed heavily as he climbed onto the seat, slamming the elfwood shield
into the back of the wagon. Small cries of protest issued, which the
Cayaborean happily ignored. “Far as I recall,” he muttered to the
wizard, “you made pretty good use of that alreu idol a while back,
didn’t you? Barandas the Magnanimous, wasn’t it?”
“Magnificent!”
the wizard cried – and grunted unhappily when he saw the satisfied face
of Cornell.
“My
mistake,” the Cayaborean said, enjoying every word. “You’d never be
generous, of course.”
Flink
and Gabe climbed on board the wagon, found spaces for themselves between
the loads of provisions, and the barbarian cast a sorry glance at the two
men on the seat. “Must have missed something here,” he muttered, then
he resigned to listening to Flink as the alreu began enthusiastically
going through the provisions and listing heartily all the things he found.
“And
stay out!”
Angrily
Barandas slammed the door shut after pushing Flink out of the small room
for the third time. For a moment, the alreu’s complaining voice could be
heard through the wood of the door, then he seemed to fall silent. In all
probability, Cornell thought, he had just turned to Gabe or the shield for
some new line of thought.
“All
right,” Cornell said and sighed heavily, “what are you after this
time? Money or magic? I don’t suppose there is a maiden in the cave that
needs rescuing by a heroic wizard?”
Barandas
rolled his eyes. “I’m getting the feeling you’re not really happy to
see me.”
“I’m
ecstatic. Now spit it out.”
The
wizard rolled his eyes again and sat down on a stool next to a workbench.
They were in a tiny adjunct to a stable, the room containing no more than
the stool, the workbench and a pile of horseshoes. A few minutes earlier
Cornell had sold the mare he had bought from the sandmen in the Elfadil
desert, for ninety-five silver aryel. Then he had asked the stable
owner for a private room, and to his surprise the Tonomai had readily
agreed. He seemed to be overly busy with moving the emaciated desert horse
into his stable to care about the other wishes of his customer – a good
sign, Cornell had hoped since he was planning to buy a good horse here. A
real horse, fit for a Cayaborean warrior.
But
first there was the business of Barandas to deal with.
“So,
which is it? Magic or money?”
Barandas
shrugged. “Magic. I got a map from a merchant that shows the way to the
cave. Supposedly, a powerful wizard used to live there until he fell on
hard times and left. Don’t ask me what exactly happened, I don’t know.
But the merchant told me that the wizard had to leave some of his stuff
behind. Might be something good.”
Now
it was Cornell’s turn to roll his eyes. “Oh, great, another quest for
a mysterious place. Just what I need now. What’s the danger? Burrower
dragonflies? A spell that incinerates all who enter? Or a holnesh? Believe
me, I don’t need another one.”
“Another
one?!” Barandas perked up at the mention, raised an eyebrow, obviously
waiting for further explanation – but got none. Finally he shook his
head, grunted something inaudible, then said, “All right, here’s what
I know. There are three lines of defense at the cave. The first is an
illusion spell that hides the entrance to the cave. No problem there, I
know how that works and can disable it. The secondary defense is a door
with a spell on it that turns all who open it into stone.”
“Who
did you have in mind for the petrification? Me?”
Barandas
shook his head vigorously. “Goodness gracious, don’t you have any
trust in me?! You’re my friend!” Indignated he stared at
Cornell, then he shrugged and said, “I’ve been thinking about the
alreu.”
Clearly
the wizard was waiting for an angry explosion from the Cayaborean – but
Cornell nodded solemnly. “Not a bad idea, that one.”
“Don’t
go off like a –“ Barandas started, caught himself after a moment and
squinted at Cornell. “You’re not serious, are you?”
The
Cayaborean’s grin sparkled evilly. For a moment one might have thought
that he would have gladly cast the alreu into an abyss and followed up
with a load of boiling oil, just to make sure. Then the evil look
dissipated and was replaced by a gladsome questioning visage. “What have
you got to undo the petrification?”
“Bloody
Cayaborean –“ Barandas stopped himself, pulled a small flask from a
pocket of his robe and thrust it to his friend. “Pour it over the stone
alreu right after the spell has taken effect. He’ll barely know what
happened to him. And, seriously, it had better be the alreu. The manlings
are pretty good at opening locked doors. As for the third line, there are
two statues in front of the entrance of the wizard’s abode. A riddle
activates them to move aside, so you can happily stride inside and pick up
the goods.”
“Sounds
like you got everything covered,” Cornell nodded, pondering the
wizard’s words carefully. “Why did you want to get Gabe to accompany
you?”
“Oh,
did I?” Barandas smiled.
Cornell
was baffled, looking at the quiet contentment of the wizard – then the
pieces started falling into place. “You knew that he’s with
me?”
“Tides
of magic, Cornell, you’re pretty slow,” Barandas teased. “Remember
the magiscribe message in Chazevo? Your barbarian friend’s name
was written clearly on it, so I only had to keep an ear out for him to
find you. Now can we forget about the savage? Why don’t you tell him to
hunt a stag so we can feast after the cave?”
“I
don’t think Gabe wants to stay outside,” Cornell commented with a
grin.
Barandas
grunted, “Dump him! We don’t need the brute. The alreu’s of use, so
fine, he can stay.”
“Really?
And you’re going to tell him?” Cornell asked, thought for a moment,
then said, “Gabe usually swings his axe from the right, to lop off the
head. If you duck at the right moment, maybe you can run fast enough.”
“You
seriously want to take the savage along?”
Cornell
raised an eyebrow. “Nobody called you to join our party. I know
it is hard for you to understand but the world doesn’t revolve around
Barandas the Magnetic.”
“Magnificent!”
the wizard shot back automatically.
They
stared at each other. Finally, Barandas snarled, “All right, if you want
to, we’ll take your savage along. What about you, are you in, or
aren’t you?”
Cornell
rose, shrugged and headed for the door. “Gabe’s going to that cave
whether I say yes or no. And since it’s liable to be dangerous for Flink
and him, I’m coming, too.” He opened the door.
“And
what about me?” Barandas. “It could get dangerous for me as well!”
The
Cayaborean smiled brightly at the wizard, then he walked out.
Finally
there was a good piece of horse flesh under him, Cornell rejoiced as they
were riding towards the cave. Twenty-five torkyn the brown stallion
had cost him, but it had been worth every gold coin. The horse was a
powerhouse, rippling muscles, and its love for gallop had been obvious
from the first moment the Cayaborean had laid eyes on it. Stormwind was
the name he chose for the horse, and as soon as the party had left the
city wall, the stallion had proved the name to be very apt. Cornell had
been forced to use all his strength to keep Stormwind from bounding ahead,
eating up the dirt road across the hilly, grassy land.
A
few miles to the east the mighty Cheselain river flowed, supplying this
part of the Tonomai land with plentiful water to support several farms –
not to mention that there were bushes and trees growing everywhere. One
couldn’t call this place lush, not when one was used to the rich nature
of the milder climates. For Tonomat, it was a beautiful oasis.
“Any
of you have an opinion on this?” Cornell asked the elfwood shield
fastened to his saddle.
“We’re
going to die,” the voice of the cowardly Nev answered. “The magical
traps in that stinking cave are going to kill us.”
Phindar,
former caravan head and priest of Decalleigh, muttered, “Well, all this
reminds me of a trip my friends and I took some twenty years ago. Or,
wait, wasn’t that twenty-five? Time passes so quickly…”
Calmly
the only female voice from the shield interrupted Phindar, “So, shield
bearer, is that what you expected?”
“Yes,”
Cornell nodded with a tired grin, “everybody going through the same
familiar motions.” He cast a glance over his shoulder to Barandas
driving the wagon. The wizard’s eyes were glued to the shield rather
than the road, greed glistening. “No way,” Cornell told him. “I’m
not going to give you the chance to inspect this magical item. While
we’re on that topic, what happened to that magical ring I gave you half
a year ago? You just wanted to take a brief look at it, then return it,
right?”
“Uhmm…”
Barandas quickly dug in his robe, produced a map sketched on papyrus and
waved it, saying, “Just a mile or two left, at best! We’ll have to
turn at the next crossing.”
The
Cayaborean grinned self-satisfied and returned his gaze forward. At least
half an hour would pass before Barandas would start eyeing the shield
again, maybe a few moments more. And perhaps the buckler might stay quiet
as well.
He
wasn’t that lucky, Cornell soon discovered, for Phindar breathed
deeply and then started to recount the story he had scarcely begun a
little earlier. And the Cayaborean’s head slumped forward, resigned to
another long, long hour. Maybe, he thought after a moment, it
wouldn’t be that bad for Barandas to take that close look at the shield
he so desired. After all, then Cornell wouldn’t see the buckler again
for a few years at least…
“…
took out three of ‘em clawvoles back then,” Phindar was saying.
“Well, I was a tad younger of course. Had a lot more muscles to my
frame, bit like Gabe, y’know? Hah, women were flocking after me like
moths with a candle about! The temple elders kept getting their robes in a
knot, seeing what I was doing! But back to the story, and to that lair
we’d found…”
No,
Cornell thought resignedly, I couldn’t hand these poor souls over to
Barandas. Who knows what the idiot might do to them?
After
an hour of uneventful riding – and one detour when they found their path
blocked by a lake that clearly hadn’t been on the wizard’s map -,
Barandas announced, “This is it, we’re here.”
“Thank
the gods!” Flink exclaimed, slipped from his pony and rushed behind some
shrubbery to take care of highly personal business.
“You
should have thought of that earlier!” Gabe chuckled.
The
party dismounted and started to look around. The rockface ahead of them
was impressive. It seemed a strange sight, to see something close to a
mountain rise from a hilly landscape, none of the mounds of earth higher
than some eighty feet. What was ahead of them towered at least five
hundred feet over them, growing like a spike into the air – like a
giant’s tooth, thrown loose in a battle and embedded in the earth. Alder
and cedar trees were plentiful enough to form a semblance of a forest,
receding from the increasingly rocky ground at the foot of the mountain
where bushes grew.
Except
for one clearing where the earth had obviously been burned by a fire not
too long ago. Chipped, white pieces lay scattered on the ground, half
buried by wind, rain and mud. More identifiable pieces were under the
shrubbery, the bones of pigs, cattle and sheep.
Gabe
picked up one of the bones and frowned. “Toothmarks,” he said. “What
kind of a party was this? Don’t these Tonomai know how to contain their
cooking fires?”
“Perhaps
the feast before the summer solstice,” Phindar pondered from the
buckler. “In the Tonomai belief, their One God came to Gushémal a month
before the solstice and spent four weeks spreading his belief. I keep
forgetting the name of that feast, but the Tonomai faithful celebrate the
coming of the One God, and on solstice day, they celebrate his departure,
having left his word behind.”
While
the others were discussing Tonomai religion – and Flink emerged from the
bushes with a relieved look on his face -, Barandas slowly wandered along
the foot of the mountain, one hand stuck in a pocket of his robe. There
was no unusual feature in the rock, just plain gray stone, some of which
covered by moss, a few niches filled with earth that sustained grass and
shrubbery.
Then
Barandas’ face lit up and he pointed with his free hand toward a spot on
the mountain. “I’ve found the cave!”
“Really?”
Gabe wondered and shook his head. “There’s only rock.”
“It’s
an illusion, stupid!” the wizard exclaimed and walked straight into the
mountain. And disappeared in what seemed an ordinary boulder.
Cornell
drew a face. “That about settles it, I guess.” He checked the hold of
the buckler on his left arm, hefted his sword in his right hand and
followed Barandas into the mountain.
Flink
hurried after him, afraid he’d miss out on any of the fun, while Gabe
removed his axe from his back and glanced at the metal blade. “Well, bwyell,
time for a little more honor and glory, isn’t it?”
Read
on in
SECTION 2
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