The Secrets of Starpoint Mountain

by Bill Albert

  “We can check the grounds, but we’ve checked the buildings from the attics to the floors.”

  Gallif was breathing heavy when she asked, “What about down?” They all looked at her puzzled, so she continued. “You said there was a brewery in one of the buildings.”

  “Yes,” Tome said and pointed to the one they had first checked. “There.”

  “Were there bottles of ale on racks?”

  “Bottles in boxes.” Kavelle said. “But they were empty.”

  Gallif rose to her feet. She drew her flame sword and said “So there should be some sort of cellar to let the ale age properly. Someplace cold and damp.”

  “Of course,” Tome said. “Between the brewery and the wall.”

  Before he could say any more Gallif was off and running.

  TWENTY:

  COLD PLACES

  The entrance to the cellar wasn’t as easy to find as they had expected. Usually a cellar was dug directly under a building; this one was actually located several feet away against the outer stone wall. It was set flat on the ground and surrounded by potted flowers and shrubs.

  “That’s a long way to go to hide some booze,” Gallif said as they moved some of the pots out of the way.

  Once the door was cleared they looked carefully along the edges to check for traps. Tome’s early experiences helped, and he was sure none were being used on the door.

  As Kavelle pulled the door up and open a section of the wall moved back to make way. The door was much larger than it appeared from the surface and revealed steps wide enough for two people. A wide ramp made of wood ran down the center of the steps to help transport large barrels of ale. Gallif pulled her sword and looked at Tome. He tightened his grip on his long sword and they started down together.

  One flight down, in the shadow of the stone wall above it, was a heavy wooden door. There was no visible lock and Tome inspected the latch before pulling it up. The door slid inward and stepped inside.

  As they entered the cellar they coughed and stumbled and had to prevent Maura and Kavelle from falling. There was such a staggeringly strong smell of fruits, herbs and spices that they each took several deep breaths and started forward. On both sides of the hall were several barrels of very rich ale with a door on the far wall. They went through the second door and hurriedly closed it behind them.

  “Wow,” Maura almost laughed as she cleared her lungs. The smell was still detectible here but not near as much as the outer room. She shook to clear her head. “That’s pretty potent stuff.”

  “We’re going to have a hangover just for walking through there,” Tome smiled. “Gallif?”

  Gallif was leaning against the wall for support and took a few extra breaths before standing. “I’m okay,” she said and waved him off. “It was just the sudden sensation.”

  “Does alcohol have that much effect on you?” Maura asked.

  “It hasn’t always,” she said and rubbed her head. She had some memory of drinking very powerful ale in a restaurant the night she got to Primor. She remembered talking to someone. Who was it?

  “Can you keep moving?” Tome asked and Gallif nodded that she was ready.

  The cellar they were now in had three huge racks with various bottles of ale. The racks were long and divided the room up into two aisles with a vast array of spider webs suspended from all the racks and most of the ceiling. It was dark and damp with only a few candles at various locations.

  Gallif waved her flame sword at several of the webs and they burned away. Maura, Tome and Kavelle crowded close to her as she led the way down the aisle on the right side. She swept the aisle with her sword and removed the webs as they went.

  After a few swings she surprised a nest of spiders, each as big as her hand that scattered to escape the heat. Further on they all jumped back at the squeak of several rats near their feet.

  Several more steps and Gallif came to a stop. She knelt down and looked at the floor directly beneath them. At this point the floor changed from a rock to a wooden floor. She put her left foot on the wood and tapped the surface gently with her hand. She tried to move the boards, but they held solid. She stood and slowly continued on.

  They got to the end of the aisle and when the back wall of the room became clear they could see several lines of markings on the wall. Deep red characters broken up into various groups. Gallif burned away enough webs so they could see the wall clearly.

  “I’m not sure what language it is,” Kavelle stepped forward and looked closer at the markings. “Bring the flame closer,” she ordered.

  Reluctantly Gallif brought the sword as close to the wall as she could get. Kavelle concentrated on the wall. She studied the figures and occasionally mumbled something as she tried to read it.

  “I thought it might be buraic,” she said after a time. “I’m not sure what it is.”

  “Some of the characters look buraic,” Maura agreed. “It’s just that the horizontal lines aren’t long enough.”

  Kavelle was impressed that someone else knew the old language she had mentioned and glanced at the wall to check that Maura was right. She slid to one side to let Maura get a closer look. Once there Maura looked to determine the material used to mark the wall.

  “It’s blood,” Maura said as Kavelle put a hand on her shoulder to help her balance.

  “Let’s check this other aisle,” Tome said. “Then we can come back and try and read it.”

  “It’s not a language,” Gallif said quietly and moved Kavelle aside.

  “It has to be,” Kavelle disagreed. “The way the characters are divided and some repeated. It can’t be anything else.”

  “It’s a logic puzzle,” Gallif said knowing she was right. They all looked closer and tried to find the clues that she had caught. She ran her finger across the lines and finally stopped at a collection of six figures in the middle row. “There, that needs a slash mark,” she said. Before anyone could protest, she pulled out her twelve-inch knife from her hip and made a small cut in her index finger. She squeezed the tip until the finger was covered in blood then pressed it against the top of one mark and ran a line of blood to the bottom of the next. She quickly pulled her finger back and stood as the marks on the wall started to glow red.

  The glow kept increasing as the dark color of the blood marks turned bright red. They started to squint against the light and they could hear the scuttle below as the rats in the room ran away. It quickly became so bright that they had to cover their eyes for protection. Finally, as fast as blowing out a candle, the light vanished.

  When their eyes readjusted to the new light they saw that the wall was completely gone and, like a door opening, it revealed a stone hallway on the other side. It was ten feet wide and ran in both directions with burning torches mounted on the wall every ten feet. Without stepping in they looked in each direction as far as they could see. To the left the hallway angled away and they could see light from a room just around a corner. To the right the hall ran only twenty feet and then took a sharp turn away from their position.

  One by one they stepped into the hallway and all were struck by just how cold it suddenly was. As they exhaled, they saw their breath before it quickly faded away.

  Gallif quickly and quietly pulled her coat out of her backpack and wrapped it around her.

  “Are we that close to the ice fields?” Maura asked in a whisper as she shivered.

  “It’s only a few miles,” Kavelle said. “There are also lots of very cold underground rivers in the area. We must be very near one of them to get this cold.”

  “Do you want my coat?” Gallif asked.

  Maura signaled that she did not, and Tome urged them to move on. He went to the left and they walked very quietly until they came to the angled hall. They could hear some type of conversation going on further down the hall and realized by the grunts and growls that orcs were ahead of them. Staying just barely out of sight Tome leaned over and looked in the direction of the light. He leaned back and signaled to t
hem with his fingers that there were four orcs around the corner.

  He tapped Maura on the shoulder then pointed to her bow. She leaned the short sword against the wall and took the bow off of her shoulder. She pulled two arrows from her quiver and got them ready.

  Tome pointed at her and the bow and held up a single finger indicating she would fire first. He pointed at Gallif, Kavelle and himself and then indicated they would go in second. They all nodded that they understood and moved into ready positions.

  Gallif watched with some concern as her friend slowly leaned out into the adjoining hall and took aim. She saw sweat coming down Maura’s forehead and worried that it took a great deal of time to adjust her position. Maura’s eyes shot to Gallif and Gallif nodded her on. With a deep breath Maura steadied her hand and let two arrows fly.

  Without a pause Tome, Gallif and Kavelle ran into the room. The battle was brief and quiet and within seconds all of the orcs were dead. One had been downed by Maura’s arrows and the others by the weapons at hand. Maura started ahead, then stopped and went back to grab the short sword she had been given by Tome before.

  They quickly learned that this room had been where four orc guards had lived and been stationed. There were four ragged beds in the room and mounds of clothes and rotten food scattered on the floor. They found a considerable number of weapons but having been designed for the orcs they were too large and heavy for most humans to use effectively. There was a heavy triple locked door with a closed shutter on the far side and they appeared to be in the guard post of a jail.

  They searched the bodies and found a key ring on the body of what had been the orc in charge.

  “Do we go in there?” Maura asked.

  Tome nodded and they all moved to the door. As Kavelle and Tome searched the key chain to find the right ones, Gallif slowly opened the shudder and looked beyond.

  “I can see at least four cells,” she said as she tried hard to catch more details. “I think there are more just on the other side of the door.”

  “Can you see any people?” Tome asked.

  “Not from this angle,” she said as she closed the shudder.

  Tome pulled a key and used it to open the first lock. He glanced back at the key chain, then at the second lock, and used a key to open it as well. There were dozens of keys hanging from the chain, but Tome managed to pick the correct key every time.

  Very slowly, with weapons in hand, they opened the door. Nothing came out to attack them and after a few moments they stepped inside.

  There was another noticeable drop in the temperature as they came into the jail. As they exhaled they could see their frozen breath and felt the prickling on their bare skin.

  On each side of the door were cells that Gallif had not been able to see from outside. The one on the left was empty but the one on the right had a body in it. It was a human body of a man dressed in dark clothes that Tome recognized as something like he had worn in his younger days. Apparently, he had failed at some point in his attempt to plunder.

  The second set of cells was completely empty. On the left cell of the third pair were several humans huddled together to stay warm. They were dressed in thin clothes that would have kept them warm on the surface but in these conditions they were barely enough to protect them.

  Maura gasped in surprise as a young woman in the group stepped forward. At first glance the prisoner looked almost identical to Gallif but as she got closer they could see the difference in the details. Gallif realized it was Bitran’s daughter. Tome and Kavelle went forward to open the cell. Gallif was about to join them when she heard a familiar voice behind her.

  “Gellif?” Arca asked. He smiled and jumped when Gallif turned and he realized that it was the person he had prayed for. Arca looked at the other three dwarves he had been imprisoned with and nodded to them that things were okay.

  “Stand back,” Gallif ordered and she smacked against the jail door with her flame sword. The power of the metal and the heat was enough to break the lock cleanly. The door swung open and Gallif ran inside. She threw her arms around Arca and hoped to transfer as much heat as possible from her body to his.

  “Linea?” Arca asked.

  Gallif pulled him close and whispered “No” to him very calmly.

  Arca stepped back, looked deep into Gallif’s eyes, then nodded.

  “Maura, come here,” Gallif called and they were joined in the cell by her friend. “Help him get moving and warmed up as much as possible,” she said and went to Tome and Kavelle inside the other cell.

  “We’ll take them to the outer room so they can get warmer and then pick them up on the way out,” Kavelle said.

  “No,” Gallif shook her head in anger. “They have to get to the cellar right away.”

  “Okay,” Tome agreed with Gallif much to Kavelle’s frustration. To Gallif he said, “Check the other cells first.”

  She quickly looked and, to her surprise, found a dead human on the floor in one of the cells. She recognized the face but decided not to say anything and kept moving. The other cell was empty.

  With Gallif and Maura supporting the dwarves as best they could and Tome and Kavelle escorting Bitran’s family they quickly moved to the gap in the hall that they had entered through.

  “Just get over to the far corner and stay there,” Tome ordered the escapees. “It’ll warm you up and you can hide in the dark. It’ll be pretty messy, but you’ll be safe there. If anyone else comes through don’t make a sound or move.”

  They did as they were told, and Tome led the rest of them back to the jail office at a quick pace. He ordered Maura to stand watch while he, Kavelle, and Gallif pulled the bodies of the orcs into the cell area and closed and locked the door.

  “Someone’s coming,” Maura whispered as loud as she dared from her guard point. Kavelle joined her and pulled her to one side of the entrance. Gallif went to join them but Tome pulled her to the wall. They barely breathed and soon heard the sound of footsteps approaching.

  After a few seconds a lone figure entered and Tome and Kavelle were on it instantly. Tome grabbed the head and face to prevent the figure from calling for help while Kavelle grabbed the sword and pulled it hard and away for safety. They were surprised to find it was a human dressed in a bulky monk’s robe. Tome put his hand hard against the man’s mouth to prevent him from calling for help.

  “Make one noise and it’ll be your last,” Gallif said with her twelve-inch knife against the man’s throat.

  The man struggled for a few more seconds and then stopped and lay back quietly.

  “I’m going to take my hand off and you will answer questions quietly and carefully,” Tome said in a steely voice. “Do you understand?” The man slowly nodded that he did, and Tome pulled his hand away.

  “Who are you?” Tome asked.

  The man glanced at Tome, then Gallif, then at the knife above his throat. Gallif pulled the knife back but didn’t put it away.

  “Why did you kill all those people?” Gallif asked and Tome looked at her hard for her to be quiet.

  “Who are you?” Tome repeated the question.

  “My name is Tasker,” he finally said.

  “What do you do here?” Tome said steadily.

  “I do whatever Zaslow tells me to do.”

  “What has Zaslow told you to do?” Tome asked starting to lose patience.

  “Kill you.”

  With strength so powerful it had to be casting based Tasker kicked up and completely tossed Tome to the side. He sat up and took a swing at Gallif that grazed her temple and she fell back slightly stunned.

  Tasker jumped up and onto his feet and the monk robe dropped away to reveal leather armor with a light blue tint to it. He went for Tome’s long sword, but Tome was starting to pick himself up from the throw. His hand was on the handle and they wrestled for control. Kavelle swung hard with her mace and smacked it against the floor near Tasker’s head. In a sliding, snake like motion Tasker pushed himself across the floor. Kavelle m
ade another attack and missed. Gallif rose to her feet and dodged with the flame sword in his direction. Tome and Tasker both got up as well. In one hand Tasker had a long sword and in the other was an axe. Both weapons were designed for orcs and extremely heavy and the experienced fighters knew this would be the toughest opponent they had encountered yet. Despite his strength he was also on the far side of the room and cornered so the humans could advance without him getting behind them.

  Tome, Gallif and Kavelle stepped forward in unison. Maura was two steps behind them with her sword in hand.

  Tasker struck the table with the axe so hard the wood splintered.

  Gallif took a strike with the flame sword. She knew she would miss but hoped the sight of it might distract him and allow one of the others to attack. His eyes followed it ever so briefly but were back in focus before she finished the arc.

  Kavelle swung with the mace and Tasker stepped to one side. For a brief second he was in range of Tome’s sword and the blade cut into his side. With armor cast stronger than Tome’s or Kavelle’s the hit had no effect on him.

  Not taking her eyes off him, Kavelle readied her mace for another attack. She took a step back as her hand carefully pulled one of the pouches off of her belt.

  Maura summoned up as much nerve as she could and stepped forward, but as Tasker made a few strong strides in their direction she fell back. Gallif and Tome took up positions on either side of Tasker and started closing in. The blade of the axe sliced through the air and narrowly missed Gallif’s abdomen. The sword was jabbed forcefully at Tome and caught the edge of his sleeve, but the casting defenses prevented him from getting damaged. Gallif took advantage of Tasker’s minor victory and drove her blade home at his chest. She hit him with enough force that his skin turned red from the burns.

  Kavelle took a wild swing with the mace. She knew it wouldn’t hit Tasker, but it was fast and hard enough to draw his attention away from them. She pulled her left arm back and let fly the bag she had taken from her belt. The bag caught him on the shoulder and, even though it was made of cloth, burst like a bubble spilling a dull black powder onto his armor. The black powder quickly spread across the surface and soon the blue tint was gone, and the armor had taken on a dull rusted color.