River Of Life (Book 3) (22 page)

The big creature came from inside, packing a large barrel over
one shoulder and a couple bags under the other arm.  These he threw onto his
horse, saying, “I am now,” as he tied down the barrel.

The Brect looked up into the amused eyes of the wizard.  “What?”
the Brect quizzed and said with a smile of his own, “I’m making the trip worth
the trouble.”

“Uh huh,” Erelon said sarcastically.

The barkeeper had followed Fresmir outside, all too happy to see
the Brect take a few items if they would simply leave.  Erelon looked towards
the building and stated, “Just doesn’t seem right that they should hide inside
on such a beautiful day.”

Lightning shook the building’s foundations as it tore through
the roof, wood splinters flying in every direction.

“Please, please,” the manager’s pleas were drowned out by
Erelon’s pacing mind.  The wizard watched the last few leave the establishment,
and then with an upraised fist, he called out in the Humban language the four
names for the corners of the earth, "Meltrose!  Celeise!  Belthane! 
Nolline!"

The breeze picked up as the winds of the four corners rushed in,
drawn by the wizard’s command.  In the center of the tavern they seemed to
clash, a huge impact twisting together in an upward spiral, picking the wooden
building up and scattering pieces of the tavern.

“Now,” Erelon stated, addressing the distraught proprietor, “If
you rebuild, I’d suggest that maybe you be more hospitable to all who travel. 
You never know who you might be having for a guest.”

Erelon tugged at the reins of Draos, leading him from the
village, Fresmir not far behind.

Fresmir had again taken the lead as he knew where they were
going.  Up into the mountains.  Higher with thinner air.  More rocks, shorter
grass, cooler springs, these were the characteristics that Erelon had seen
before.

Erelon had stopped at a few towns, going in alone, buying
supplies and searching for news, especially about his blunder at the village. 
A few were agitated by the wizard’s actions; others felt he was justified. 
Still, many did not care or were too afraid to give their opinion.  Many others
were so terrified by the wizard's mangled appearance they refused to speak to
him.

One day they overlooked the capitol, Samos, and the next they
were looking down steep falls to death.  With the barrel he had taken from the
tavern empty, Fresmir cut it loose and watched it drop, bouncing a couple times
against the mountain wall before breaking into pieces.  It was like many of the
other mountains Erelon had traveled through, although for as far north as
Erelon could see, there was nothing except the peaks of mountains.  The stories
Erelon had always heard was that the Northern Hemisphere was covered in
mountains and that it was inhabitable to all except trolls, giants, and wild
beasts.

Erelon began to realize that they were in country that Fresmir
knew well.  Erelon saw nothing except iron stone, but Fresmir always found
plants for the horses to eat and water for drinking and wood for a fire.

Fresmir first opened about his feelings while they sat in a
bowl, protected from the cold winds.  A creek was nearby, its gurgling audible,
and a small fire used a gnarled tree to cast weird shadows.

“You know,” he started talking to no one, “It was from such
people that hated us that we received the name Brect.  Some say it means
witch’s pet, others a most wretched race.  It doesn’t matter.  We bear the name
like a badge of pride.  To prove ourselves, to show we can stand up in the face
of prejudice, hate, persecution.”

That was all.  Fresmir went completely quiet.  He did not speak
another word, but instead flopped below his blankets and, breathing hard, fell
to sleep.  Erelon simply lay watching the fire as his vision blurred and the
flames became a vibrating dancing blob, darkened, and disappeared.

They were both awake early, the sun barely outlining the tips of
the peaks.  It seemed as if the scent that Fresmir followed grew stronger as
they traveled, and the knowledge that they grew closer to their destination
made the Brect more eager to arrive.  They pushed their horses harder, were up
earlier, and on the trail longer.  As they traveled deeper into the mountains,
they almost seemed to leave the steep narrow trails behind, traveling instead
through valleys, paths that went between the peaks instead of high up on their
walls.

The paths were numberless.  They formed a giant maze, in which a
traveler could easily become lost for years and die without ever seeing another
man.  A few times a low growl gurgled and echoed down the mountains, making
Draos shift nervously.

The danger of the country through which Erelon traveled did not
really enter his mind until one afternoon as they were cutting through a
valley, and Fresmir whispered anxiously, “Quickly follow me.”

Erelon chased Fresmir’s beast into a thicket and pulled Draos to
the ground.  Fresmir had pulled his crossbow, and Erelon already had his long
bow clutched in one hand before he saw what had caused Fresmir to take cover. 
Three trolls lumbered through the valley.  Their stench filled the area, almost
as if a cloud surrounded their presence.  They hummed some guttural tune as
they swung their legs.

A rock bigger than Draos crashed into the chest of the third
troll.  A giant leaped down from above, a crude club crashing into the skull of
the first troll, dropping him fast. The center troll became the recipient of
several spears made from the trunks of young trees.  They were thrown through
the air.  Huge, crude, spears that bludgeoned the flesh of the troll as it
penetrated.  Its flesh seemed to explode.  The third troll rolled to his feet. 
Other giants came from the rocks and stepped up to the troll.  They stood close
and executed him, driving the spears, little more than honed trees, through its
body until it crumpled.  Repeatedly the spears continued, in and out, long
after the troll's nerves had ceased twitching.

Quickly the giants began to loot the bodies, and though it only
took a few moments, to Erelon it seemed an eternity.  Giants were supposed to
be his allies, yet he did not wish to risk showing his presence to giants on
the path of war.

This was the country of giants and trolls.  Erelon had not been
invited; his presence was not known; he was not being escorted by giants; and
they might take him for an enemy before he had a chance to explain who he was.

As the giants passed from the valley, Fresmir was on his horse,
quickly explaining, “Other trolls may come looking for their brethren.  When
they see their brothers dead, hell will explode.”

Both Fresmir and Erelon raced from the valley, leaving the dead
trolls behind.  Both travelers turned to a blur, a streak through the
mountains.  Not until the sun began to set did Fresmir pull his horse up to a
slower gait.  The air was thinner and both horses were breathing heavy. 
Fresmir led into another thicket.

“No fire.  We’re deep in troll country.  They’ll already be able
to smell us quick enough without us lighting a beacon to guide them.”

The temperatures dropped until water froze.  Both men slept
close to their horses, covering in all the clothes and blankets they packed,
and still they shivered constantly.  As morning rose, their joints were stiff,
almost frozen.  It took a few minutes to warm their muscles.  Fresmir even lit
a small fire, and they heated coffee and warmed their hands.

Stomping the fire, Fresmir said, “We’ll reach the site by noon.”

They started at an easy pace, warming their horses and then
gently increasing the gait to a swift walk.  The morning was cool, still Erelon
sweated below his robes.  Before noon he was already stripping robes and
rolling them before stashing them into his pack.

The sun looked straight down on top of the two travelers when
Fresmir pulled to a stop.  After taking many narrow trails and passing into
cracks that looked no more than dead ends, they finally stood before a shrine
buried in brush and overgrowth.  It followed a circular architectural plan with
a spire in the center that weaved a path through the sky as it grew upward,
held down by chains.  Four rectangular prongs grew from the main circle.  Vines
and arches were carved from the stone, and Humban runes decorated the surface.

A pillar sat before it.  Erelon grabbed a hatchet and, for a
moment, worked on clearing vines, being careful not to strike the stone
surface.

As vines fell away, the wizard let out a gasp, “One of the
Humban corners of the world.”

“Yeah,” the Brect commented, “Meltrose.  You see it’s been a
secret long kept by my race.”

“A secret you should keep only to yourself.  You should not have
even shown me,” Erelon said still in awe as he gazed towards the ancient
structure.

The Brect continued as if he had not heard a word the wizard had
uttered, “Occasionally the members of my race make a pilgrimage to see the four
corners of the world, just to check on them.  It is said that the Humbas
created us after they destroyed the wraiths.  We were made as a fusion of
wraith and animal so that the world of the wraiths would never completely
disappear.  There were four lines to my race, and it is rumored that when one
member of each line is present at each corner, a power will be unleashed.”

Here the Brect paused and touched a pillar at one of the
corners.  Slowly, from where his hand touched the rock, the runes began to glow
orange until an entire quarter of the shrine was lit.

“None of us know what that power is, and none will ever know as
one of the lines has been forever lost to this world.  One time here at
Meltrose, there were three members represented, one for each line, and we
powered three quarters of the shrine.  Music and light filled the valley; a
feeling of tranquility filled us.  It was beautiful,” the Brect sighed with regret.

“The wraiths you fight offered that if I killed one wizard named
Erelon, they would bring back the fourth line,” the Brect smiled as he looked
towards the wizard, who had slowly begun to draw Rivurandis.  Erelon felt the
hair raise on his back.  He did not know how powerful, how dangerous the Brect
was.  Erelon was not ready for another fight, and without Fresmir, he would be
quite lost in the mountains.

Erelon felt the power of Chaucer already slipping into his veins
as his fingers lightly touched the sword when the Brect finished his comment,
“But the fourth line was annihilated for reasons many of my race have
forgotten, but I have not.  I have no wish to bring them back.”

They eyed each other for a moment, and then Fresmir added, “Feel
free to look around.  We’ll stay here for the day to rest.  The few trolls and
giants that do know of this place fear and avoid it.  We’ll be safe here.”

The wizard looked the other creature over for a moment, trying
to sense if there was any dishonor in the Brect's actions, any secretive
agenda.  But the wizard could feel no deceit in the Brect's mind or his
comments, so he turned his attention to the artifact.  Erelon wondered if maybe
this relic was a good example of how King's Time once might have been
decorated.  The runes represented the stars, moons, and sun and their cycles
through space and time.  Erelon crawled through all the different arches,
around the pillars.  He looked at the chains that held down the main center
levitating stone.  The steel of the chains looked immaculate, as if they had
been just forged by a dwarve the week before.  There was absolutely no rust
eating at the steel's surface, no pitting, no trace of a seem in any of the
links.

Erelon carefully inspected the stone.  Looking for some sign of
the spell used to levitate the center stone.  Such a spell, such a rune that
could hold up a stone so massive
that several gian
ts and trolls would
be unable to lift it, would give Erelon an insight into the ancient races power
that no other document ever had.  But none of the carvings, the runes, corresponded
to any spell.  They told stories, outlined the movements of the stars, the
moons, the sun, but no more.  Erelon was even confused by one instance where a
rune alluded to the existence of two suns.  But his quick study revealed
nothing significant to the wizard.

Outside of the shrine’s perimeter, Fresmir had started a fire
and gone to sleep.  Erelon watched and thoroughly investigated.  Yet without
the time to translate the runes and compare it all to star charts and other
documents and ponder all of what he read, Erelon could never know the full
potential of the site.  But maybe that would be for the best.  Leave hidden and
in the past what should stay there.

They left early in the morning, passing through the valley,
taking a path different from the one they came in.

“This should lead back to the mountain’s edge and the forest
that lines its feet,” Fresmir assured the wizard.

The path Fresmir picked led through more valleys.  Then it took
a gradual descent and never looked back up.  The wizard thought that it was
going to lead them into the earth below its crust, but it leveled out, and
after a few days, near dusk, they finally stepped out from a crack in the
mountain wall and into a forest.  There was no real path other than the one
they made for themselves by choosing a route with the thinnest brush.  A few
moments and Fresmir chose a thick mass of brush and found a way inside.  He
dropped off his horse and started unsaddling, making a camp.

“There are still trolls and giants in these woods.  They are
still unfriendly, and just so you know, we got lucky in those mountains.  I’ve
been in them and had to race around trying to find an exit.  I’ve seen whole
regiments of adventurers and soldiers in those mountains looking for anything
from gold to a quest.   And I’ve seen them destroyed.”

The Brect had become serious.  Fresmir was poking a small fire
with a stick, stirring it, causing embers to float into the air.