The Secrets of Starpoint Mountain

by Bill Albert

  “Have you ever seen something like these before?”

  “Yes,” she spoke freely.

  “What can you tell me about them?”

  “You can get them all over the place the further into the mountains you get. They are pretty common in the higher altitudes.”

  “So, you couldn’t tell me anything specific about where these came from?” Gallif asked with disappointment.

  “I’m afraid not,” Maura shook her head. “We’ve got several dozen here in the cellar. Why are they so important to you?”

  “Just curious,” she said quickly. Maura nodded and sat on a small table near the dresser as Gallif checked some of her weapons.

  “Are you a good fighter?” Maura asked as Gallif wiped some dirt off of her knife.

  “I do pretty good,” Gallif said with sudden modesty. “How about you?”

  “I’m vicious with a bow and arrow,” she said with a wink. “I do okay with a mace or hammer, but the finer points of sword play are a bit tough for me.”

  “It takes time. You’re still young and have plenty of time to study.”

  “I’m older than you think.”

  Gallif looked at the other woman again but could see no signs of her true age. “I figured you were maybe a year behind me. Sixteen?”

  “Eighteen,” Maura said.

  Gallif admitted that she never would have guessed her age and Maura explained life this close to the mountains was very healthy.

  Gallif was putting the jar into a protective bag when she asked, “Do the giants come here much?”

  “No, not really. They have their representatives and tax collectors come through every few months, but for the most they leave us alone.”

  “No hunting parties or campers?”

  “Rarely,” Maura giggled. “Why are you asking so many questions?”

  “I saw two giants building a campfire in the forest earlier today.”

  “That is odd,” Maura said as her smile faded. “I guess I always thought the Giant Lords would be above roughing it or something like that.”

  “Me, too,” Gallif said without looking at Maura. “That’s why I had to ask. What about night? What kinds of things happen here at night?”

  “There are lots of wolves around here. Sometimes you have to be very careful at night during the winter months, but that is still two months away.”

  “Anything else I should know of?”

  Maura sat quiet for several moments and then finally said, “There have been a few things going on in the past few months. Some things I have heard.”

  Gallif went to Maura and kneeled over to see her face to face. “What have you heard?”

  “A few nights ago, there was a customer, Mr. Pricey, that took off about dusk and headed south. He came back by morning and was a total mess. He was hysterical with fear and claimed he had had a run in with a kisertets driving a carriage and horses. He said he was frozen in place as the carriage came at him.”

  “Did he collide with it?” Gallif asked with a shiver. “Was he able to touch them?”

  “No,” she shook her head and looked down. She shifted uncomfortably and Gallif put a hand on her shoulder. “He said they went through him like there wasn’t anything there. No one here saw anything come through, so we figured maybe he had had an accident or something and imagined things.”

  “He didn’t imagine it,” Gallif said quietly. They looked at each other in silence for several seconds before Gallif continued. “I saw the same carriage that night.” Maura took Gallif’s hand and held it warmly as Gallif asked, “What happened to Mr. Priney?”

  “He said the thing he remembered the most when they passed through him was how terribly cold, he felt. We gave him some hot drinks and put him in a room for a few hours. When we checked on him, he was dead,” she whispered.

  “Did he die of fear?” Gallif asked as she moved closer and put her arm around the other woman.

  “No,” she said. “He froze to death.”

  They both fell silent in their own thoughts. Gallif remembered her encounter with the carriage and the skeletons and tried to remember if she had passed through the figures at any time during the combat. It was possible, she admitted, that at some point she may have connected with them. Then why was she still alive? She reasoned that the casting that created and moved the carriage would have been more powerful and of a different nature than what had enlivened the skeletons. She had fought in combat many times and been injured but she had never felt that close to death as she did at that moment.

  “What happened? Maura asked. “When you saw the carriage, what happened?”

  Gallif told her about the night. She was so intent on the story she didn’t realize until she was done that Maura had reached over and taken her hand.

  They spoke for hours and it was soon clear that Maura was as excited to hear a story about fighting skeletons as Gallif was to hear a story about the family owned business. The family. Gallif loved hearing stories about Maura’s parents and brother. Though some other events of her life, like the school and the Giant Lord rescue, Gallif chose to keep to herself, Maura openly told of family squabbles and celebrations.

  Finally, when Gallif was telling the story of her encounter with the baby owl she glanced over and realized that Maura was asleep sitting in the chair. Gallif smiled and decided to let the other woman sleep. She quietly crawled into bed and blew out the candles on the stand.

  Temptation covered her as quickly as the darkness filling the room.

  ***

  Gallif woke just as the sunlight started to leak into the window she was facing. She allowed herself to doze for a while. She listened for Maura’s breathing and when she heard none, she realized that Maura had left the room during the night. She got up, grabbed her gear, and then made her way to the stable. She was relieved that Maura was absent this early because she really needed to talk to a friend.

  Snow snorted a bit as she approached and Gallif quickly grabbed a handful of fresh, damp from dew, grass and fed her companion. She set the rest of her gear on a wooden bench nearby.

  “I want to stay,” Gallif finally said. It sounded so plain and simple when she said it out loud but the turmoil in her was chaotic. “She has...” Gallif started to say and then stopped and swallowed hard. She coughed and avoided looking at Show while wiping her eyes clear. “She has parents...” she let her voice trail off as she thought about the absence of her own. “She has a brother,” she added. She looked Snow straight in the eyes and said, “She has the life I lost.”

  Snow looked at her closely as she spoke and then nodded.

  Gallif took a deep breath and tried to arrange her tumbled thoughts.

  “As much as I wanted it to happen, I knew I could never get it at the school. I hid it for a long time,” she continued. “I buried it and pretended it didn’t exist. Sometimes I even believed myself. I could belong here,” she said as tears welled up in her eyes again. She laid her head to rest on Snow’s shoulder. She let the warmth and companionship of her friend sooth her.

  “This could be why I...” she started to say but was interrupted as Snow took a few steps towards the gear she had laid on the ground. She nudged her nose in to one of the cloth bags, gripped what she wanted with her teeth, and then pulled the target into the open. Snow carried the backpack that Rayjen had given to Gallif and dropped it at her feet.

  Gallif picked up the bag and wrapped her arms around it. She held it close to her chest as if it was made of fragile glass, but she knew it could withstand much punishment.

  “Yes,” Gallif nodded as the message from Snow was clear. “I owe it to Rayjen, and everyone at the school, to keep going,” she admitted. “But I will not kill another giant.

  Gallif went to a trough to wash her face and when she stood, she was surprised to see Maura entering the stable.

  “I have to be going soon,” Gallif said without looking Maura in the eyes.

  “I know,” Maura said. “I want to go with yo
u.”

  Gallif hadn’t expected this and stumbled for a brief moment before responding. “You have a good life here. Why would you risk that?”

  “It’s good and I’m very happy, yes,” Maura pleaded with her. “But it’s the same every day. I’ve been wanting to go for a long time,” she admitted. “I need a teacher that I can trust.”

  “It’s not going to be safe,” Gallif said flatly as she looked Maura in the eyes.

  “Mr. Priney was a kind man. If there is some connection between what happened to him and what you told me I want to find out about it and stop it.” She took a deep breath and said, “I need to.”

  “Can you just leave like that?” she asked as she brushed her bright red hair back.

  “I’ll have to take care of a few things,” Maura said looking away at the wall. “I’ve talked to mom and dad about this before. I think they expect it to happen. It’ll take a day or so.”

  Gallif took a deep breath and said sadly “I can’t wait a day.”

  “I’ll meet up with you in Primor by tomorrow afternoon.” Maura put a hand on Gallif’s shoulder. “I’ve spent my whole life here and I’ve been into the mountains hundreds of times,” she informed Gallif. “I’ve also been out on the ice fields. There are lots of things other than Brujas in the area.”

  Gallif turned to smile at her and ran her fingers through Maura’s short blonde hair. “Do you know where the Tebiet temple in Primor is?”

  “Yes, it’s on the eastern side of Primor called the Circle of Faith. All the temples are set on the side of one of the mountains, so they face the sunrise.”

  “Meet me there tomorrow evening,” she said.

  “I’ll be there. Do you want me to help load up your equipment on Snow?”

  “No, you better get started on what you need to take care of here,” she said.

  Maura turned and darted back to the hotel, back to her family, and Gallif watched her until she was out of sight.

  FIFTEEN:

  PRIMOR

  Gallif was totally unprepared for the beauty and grandeur of the city of Primor. Sitting against the darkness of the sprawling mountains this beautiful, colorful city seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. Coming out of the dark green forests that covered most of the mountains, a rider was suddenly thrust into an open space with a view to take the breath away. There were spires built into, or carved out of, the mountain sides and a giant waterfall the erupted from a plateau that poured liquid in every direction. The buildings were presented in a multitude of styles and colors that dazzled the eyes. She came to a complete stop at the first sight of the city and sensed that even her companion was taken by its brilliance. The wind was coming from the north and despite the warmth and brilliance of the city she could feel the coldness of the ice fields only fifteen miles on the other side. The sun was still high but because of its location night always came early in Primor, so she soon moved on.

  The hills, once she crossed the boundary into the mountains, were steeper and more curved, but she found that, as a lone rider on a horse, she could make good speed and it was early in the afternoon when she arrived in Primor.

  Since it was her first visit to the city she rode slowly when she entered. She looked down every street and intersection that she passed through and kept her eyes darting from one side of the street to the other. There was less of a militia presence here than there was in Atrexia and she saw only a few officers patrolling the city. There were plenty of businesses about and it was obviously a thriving community.

  It was the giants that surprised her the most. She saw three of them on the first few streets, but they were not officials from the Giant Lords. There were no green and azure banners flying near them or the usual entourage. They wore plain clothes like any other inhabitant of this city. She realized that she was the only one staring at them and averted her eyes to avoid drawing attention to herself.

  She also noticed that the majority of the citizens she met here were dwarves and imagined their underground nature made living in the mountains favorable. She spoke briefly with a dwarven male on a corner and asked him for directions to hotels and restaurants. He politely gave her directions, but quickly went about his business and ignored her. She came to a hotel and, as she dismounted, took her regular backpack from a saddle bag and flung it over her shoulder. She tied Snow’s reins to a post near a water trough, then stood on the porch of the building and just watched and listened to the people walking by before going in.

  Once inside she scanned the room. The popular restaurant was full of people enjoying their meals. There was a very festive atmosphere with colorful decorations. She took a deep breath to enjoy the different aromas of the variety of foods and looked from table to table and saw a large collection of the clay jars that were being used for jellies and dried fruit and Gallif’s eyes widened as she realized something obvious she had missed several times. She needed to force herself to remember what she had learned at the school about looking at the details.

  She made her way to a counter where an elderly woman was sitting. She was counting the money she had in a safe box and smiled as she introduced herself when Gallif approached.

  “Welcome, I’m Loreba. May I help you to some of our choice meats and vegetables?” the elderly woman asked.

  “Yes, I would like that very much,” Gallif smiled. “I could also use some information.”

  “Of course, dear,” Loreba patted her hand kindly.

  Gallif pulled the clay jar from her backpack and showed it to the woman. “Can you tell me where this came from?”

  Loreba took the jar and gave it a quick glance but shook her head and handed it back. “I’m afraid there are plenty of these all over the mountains, dear.”

  “Maybe this will help,” Gallif said and steadily pulled the cork off the jar. She looked inside and found strips of dried meat. She took a deep breath of the contents and could tell from the scents that this meat was from a forest animal and not normal food stock.

  The older woman took the jar and a whiff of the meat as well. She considered it for a moment and then, with Gallif’s permission, took one of the strips and tasted it. She munched on it, deep in thought, and then slowly nodded.

  “There are only a few people in Primor who can cook rabbit like this, dear,” she said. “There is a smokehouse that makes it. Just head west and follow the smell. Micarta, who cooks for the mayor, could do it. The other one I can think of is Bitran, but he’s not in town right now.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “He went into the ice fields to do some hunting for a few weeks, so you’d have to wait. It’s a pity because you have something in common with him, dear. You both have striking red hair,” she said and ran her fingers through her pure white curls “Very unusual.”

  “Yes, I’ve only met a few with hair like mine,” she said as she unconsciously brushed her own back. “What about the others?”

  “The other two places you could find within riding distance.”

  “Thank you very much,” Gallif said.

  “Can I set you up for dinner?”

  “Well, I think I will have to check this out first, but I would like to get a room for at least tonight,” she said as she produced some dwarf coins from her purse.

  Loreba took the coins and told her the room would be ready when she returned.

  ***

  The woman had been right about finding the smokehouse. Gallif was still three blocks away and, even with the wind going to the south, she could smell the odor of spicy meat. She came to a stop outside of the main office and went in.

  She was surprised to find that the only person inside the office was a giant. At just over eight feet tall he was rather small by giant standards, but inside the tiny office he was huge. He had an air of maturity about him though he didn’t look particularly old. He wore robes with several stains on them that looked like leftovers from the spices. He stayed relaxed in a huge rocking chair and smiled at her as she entere
d. There was a huge desk to one side with stacks of papers on it and barrel size bins of spice were stacked against the far wall.

  “Hello,” he said in a smooth, yet deep, voice. “I am Rante.”

  “Hello,” she said and walked over cautiously. “My name is Gallif.”

  “What can I do for you?” he asked as he rocked back.

  “I’m trying to find out where this meat came from,” she said as she held out the jar.

  “Why?”

  “It’s very good,” she said and rubbed her stomach.

  “You lie,” he said and stood to look down at her.

  Gallif desperately fought the urge to take a step back. She knew she had to hold her ground if she were going to get any information.

  “Why?” Rante asked again.

  “It was found hidden away in Atrexia,” she said looking up. “That is all I can tell you.”

  “Fair enough,” he said and nodded. He held out his hand and took the jar. She had barely managed to wrap her hand completely around the base of the jar, yet it looked so tiny as he held it. He looked it over and then handed it back to her. “You’ll have to open it,” he said. “It was made for smaller hands.”

  Gallif opened the jar and gave it back to Rante. The giant they had encountered in the sewer was much bigger and would have had the same trouble opening the container. She wondered if it had used the food to bribe the orcs and elves. Or was there someone else?

  “It’s very good,” Rante said as he smelled the contents. He then poured some strips into his hand and tossed them into his mouth. “Yes, rabbit,” he said as he sucked on the meat. “Oreg spices,” he grumbled. “Positive it’s oreg,” he shook his head. “Have you checked with Bitran to see if it is something he did?”