by BJ Hanlon
It was beautiful, serene even. If not for the cold it would’ve been perfect.
A few moments of peace passed as his breathing slowed. Edin blinked and then suddenly a dark shape whipped past the window in front of him.
With barely a glimpse, he knew that outline and dropped beneath the window.
The wyrm.
“Who are you?” A creaky voice called from somewhere behind him.
Already on edge, Edin jumped at the sound and nearly fell.
“Do not worry, it cannot see beyond the shield,” the voice said again, this time a little stronger and more sure of itself.
Edin looked around the room but saw nothing in the dark recesses where the moonlight could not touch.
“Who are you?” Edin said. “What type of magic is this?” His eyes moving across the room looking for evidence of the speaker.
“No magic… ancient technique lost to time,” the voice said. It echoed and at first it sounded to his right, but then he wasn’t sure and it sounded like it was the other side. He saw no one. “At least by our race.”
A blurring shadow crossed the window to the right and Edin dropped to his knees again.
“I told you, it cannot see inside.”
Edin stood. “I understand… but you haven’t seen that beast up close.”
“Closer than you might think,” the voice said. “You have no idea the things I’ve seen from close or far child.”
Edin bristled at the words. It’d been a long time since someone called him that. Child or kid or boy, those were disrespectful words, annoying words.
“I’m not a child,” Edin spat. “Now show yourself.” He kept gazing around the room toward the shadows. The wyrm darted to the left heading down the mountain.
Edin flinched but didn’t duck.
“Put away your weapon first.” It came from near the ramp.
Edin’s eyes shot that way, there was nothing? He had no idea where he was even supposed to look. “Fine, but you need to put away yours…”
“My sword has been lost to the depths,” the voice called.
Edin sheathed his sword. A moment later the figure stepped out from a nook on the right side of the room. A tall figure, though how tall was difficult as the shoulders were hunched. In the moonlight, he looked as if he was once a strong man but was now frail.
“Do you have food?” the man said stepping closer on bare feet.
Edin eyed him carefully, he would probably be as tall as Edin, if he’d stand up straight. Beneath his loose jerkin, the man’s stomach looked bloated.
A tickle rose in Edin’s nose. He sneezed out a “No.” Then wiped it with the cloak. “It was left with my partner outside that… wall.” He motioned toward the tall cliff to the west.
“I see…” the man said eyeing Edin with a different look now. One that offered danger. “You are sick… are you dying?”
There may have been hope in those eyes. He didn’t answer the man. “Who are you? Why are you here?” Edin asked.
“I’m no one… I’m here for no reason…” he answered.
“That seems like a stupid reason. You’re starving yourself…” Edin paused. “Are you an idiot?”
The man chuckled taking Edin by surprise. “I suppose so… in hindsight I would’ve better prepared.” He grinned, his mouth was dark and Edin wasn’t sure if he had teeth at all. “Though most past mistakes could be fixed if you had the foreknowledge beforehand… correct?”
Edin nodded and for a few moments they were silent and staring at each other.
“What is this place?” Edin asked, finally breaking the silence and wanting to change the subject from food. He certainly didn’t want the man asking him the same questions. At least not yet. “And what do you mean not our race?”
“Dwarves of course,” he said and stood up straighter. “It is an old dwarven structure. An outpost at the end of the world.”
“Dwarves? Are you certain?”
“My research says so. Did you not see the statue in the temple? The squat and square man at the top?”
“I did.”
“Right, so there it is, a dwarven outpost and far from any other dwarven cities.”
“There are more? Places like this I mean?”
“Not sure about like this…” He waved a hand around. “But there are cities I’ve heard of though finding them has proven… difficult.”
“What are you a historian or something?”
He shrugged.
“Where are the dwarves then? What happened to them?”
“They fled Bestoria,” the man said moving closer. There was an oddness in his step. He walked on the balls of his feet as if he were a crillio ready to pounce.
“Fled? From what?”
“Others that live below ground.”
“Dematians…” Edin whispered. Slipping a hand beneath his cloak and feeling for the energy around him.
The man shrugged. “From what I can tell the dematians were driven underground four or five millennia ago and they fought great wars with the dwarves.” He stepped closer again. “Eventually the dwarves fled by foot and boats around the world.”
“Around the world?” Edin thought for a moment, “are you saying the world is some kind of cylinder?”
“Cylinder?” He spat a deep laugh coming through. He began coughing. “It’s a sphere.” He continued his choking, coughing laugh. This stopped him from advancing.
“I see,” Edin said.
“Any barely educated person will tell you that by how the world rotates and wobbles… don’t tell me you think it is flat.”
“So what is your reason for being in the dwarven ruins then?” Edin asked. “You’re here to find out what happened to them in order to stop the dematians?”
“They hardly look like ruins to me.” He chuckled then paused. “Stop the dematians?”
Edin nodded.
“What do you mean?” he said, his lips pursed and looking out at the window as the wyrm flew by but completely horizontal to them.
“You see that right?” Edin pointed, “when was the last time a beast like that has appeared in our lands?”
“It’s a thunderwyrm.” He said, “and while I’m sure it cannot see us, it may sense us. I think we go below.”
Thunderwyrm? Edin didn’t feel exactly comfortable with the man but was less comfortable with the beast outside so he followed the man down, keeping his hand resting on his hilt.
The man smelled and looked like a homeless beggar, his clothes were tattered and threadbare and his bare feet were dirty and nearly black. Edin thought there was a tattoo on his bicep. It looked almost like a military regime symbol.
Edin had no idea how this man was surviving.
Soon, they reached a stone door that opened to a long hall. On either side were opened wooden doors that somehow had survived.
As Edin passed the rooms he glanced in. Small beds, short desks and wooden trunks covered the back walls.
“I do not know much about the dwarves. But I believe this is where their priests lived.” He led Edin to one of the rooms at the end. He pushed open the door to a small room lit by an unending torch. “This is my quarters…” On the ground were tracks of dirt that led to another door at the end of the hall as if someone had been traipsing through mud and had forgotten to take off their shoes before going to bed.
A sheathed sword sat in the corner with an open sack and a stack of books whose bindings were scared with white lines.
“I thought you lost your sword to the depths?”
“Mine yes,” he said and Edin’s stomach rumbled. It must’ve been loud enough for the man to hear.
“I suppose I’m not a good host as I have nothing to offer you for food.” He let out a pained chuckle.
“What about water then?”
“This way.” The man led him down the hall and to another far door. “Prepare to be amazed.”
Edin heard crashing water and wondered if there’d be some sort of rapids flowi
ng through a cavern or something.
As he opened it, Edin felt a burst of fresh air that smelled like the frozen tundra but it was warm.
Edin’s eyes widened.
They stood at the top of a stairs at least a hundred feet above a wide path… a street. Hundreds of flames lit up the huge cavern... no that wasn’t the right word. It was an underground city.
It was at least a thousand yards long and half of that wide. There were tall buildings, some reaching the roof. The streets were a grid and every block seemed to be perfectly uniform with the others.
Off to the left was a great waterfall crashing from a slit in the stone into a man-made lake. No dwarf made, Edin corrected himself.
“This is Olangia. At least that’s what I’d been able to translate. Dwarven is difficult,” the man said. He began to walk down the steps toward street level.
Edin stared around, the rock was granite and marble and sparkled with the firelight. Edin took a moment before he followed. He ran a hand along the wall. There were no tool marks of any kind.
“They were great mathematicians and architects it seems,” the man said as he turned down a street as if he owned it. “Everything is square and measured out. Even the tower above is perfectly concentric despite the outside appearance.”
He stared up at the stone buildings. There were white signs written in a script Edin couldn’t read. “How’d they survive, what’d they eat?” Edin asked.
“Wish I knew…” the man said.
Though he looked starved, the man was still moving well so at least he had some source of food. They walked toward the crashing waterfall. Wooden crates and casks were piled in corners and against walls.
Most had been thrown open or cracked and under the frozen tundra smell was a distinct odor of mold, rot and something deeper and more wretched.
Doors looked almost like knew, though they were shorter than a man’s size.
A feeling of déjà vu came to him… where had he seen those before?
As they grew closer to the waterfall, it began to look more like a fountain. It was a thin sheet of clear water shimmered down from fifty feet above them. The rectangular pool of crystal blue water lined the left wall for a hundred yards or more.
Somewhere below, shapes moved beneath the ripples but he couldn’t tell what they were. He guessed fish.
Edin dipped a hand in it. Cold.
“It’s fresh water.”
Edin cupped his hands and brought them to his lips. It was as clear and tasted as good as the Crys in spring. Edin wanted to drop his lips to it but with the unknown man there, he didn’t dare.
After a few more handfuls his thirst was quenched.
Edin turned back to the man. His head was cocked and he had a curious look.
A moment later he drew a small knife and turned away from Edin. The man’s arm flung forward and the blade flew. Edin saw flashes of light glittering off the polished metal.
Then there was a squeak as it pierced a rat.
He turned to Edin. “Food.”
Edin swallowed. He didn’t want rat. He glanced back into the water and saw the shapes were gone, “what’s in there? I saw movement?”
“Not sure… I’ve tried fishing but haven’t caught anything.”
They went into a small building that could’ve been a shop. There was a counter with crusty metal knives, sheers and awls lying on top. Bolts of faded cloth was piled in the corner and a stone oven took up much of the rear of the room. Inside, was a long piece of wood aflame but it did not burn.
Unending flames.
“It’s been so long since I spoke to a person,” the man said as he skinned the rat. The ease in which he did it made it look natural. Routine.
Edin cringed inside thinking it probably was. He didn’t want to know what it was like to skin rats or what was worse, eating them. After a few minutes of cooking, he offered Edin a hunk of it.
“How long have you been here?” Edin asked trying to hold off on taking the first bite of the vermin.
“Hard to say,” the man said nibbling on the animal. “Many months… six, maybe seven…”
Edin felt bile rise in his throat as he stared at the flesh.
He wasn’t hungry enough to eat a rat. At least not yet. He set the chunk down and looked at the shaggy haired man. Edin could see a scar above his eyebrow and his fingernails were crescents of dirt.
It had to be one of the mercs from the boat. The tower was there, the timing seemed right. Edin had to ask. “You came by boat didn’t you?” The man nodded as he gnawed on another gross part. Edin had to look away. “The group of sellswords on The Dales Horn?”
There was a crunch of bone between teeth. Edin glanced back and the man was staring at him with wide bluish-green eyes.
“Are you a seer? Can you read minds or thoughts?” He shook his head, “no, that gift hasn’t come to our kind.” He paused and looked Edin up and down. “How’d you know? You weren’t on the crew. Did you know them? Do you know them?” The man began to stand, his face turning red beneath the scraggly beard.
“No…” Edin said quickly dropping his hand back to his sword. “We sort of stole the ship in Carrow while trying to escape… I found a diary in a footlocker. A man called Orange K.”
“Kiltenguar,” the man grumbled sitting back on the stone ledge. “The cook.”
“They mutinied and killed the captain,” Edin said touching his weapon.
“I’ll kill them if I meet them again.”
“So this is the Ocaricson Fjord,” Edin said relaxing a bit.
The man nodded still looking at Edin suspiciously.
“How’d you know of it? I only found the name on an ancient map in Coldwater.”
“Its old dwarven name still used in certain documents from the old kingdom.”
Old kingdom? All of the old documents were destroyed when the purges happened. Unless he somehow found an old stash or was from Delrot. The man didn’t deny being a mercenary either. Edin swallowed. Could this be… he shook his head. “And you knew the city was here? That’s why you came? You were looking for treasure.”
“I did… specific treasure.”
What treasure, Edin wanted to ask. One of the many questions but he also felt like he lacked any more energy to continue. He need sleep. But first Edin asked. “Are you Rihkar? He was the expedition leader…”
The man nodded.
Was he Edin’s father? He hadn’t seen his father, a man he thought was his uncle, in more than a decade and it was hard to remember what he looked like. Maybe if the man wasn’t so scruffy he’d know. But Edin didn’t ask. “What about your men?”
“Dead,” he said curtly but offered nothing else.
Dead by him? Dead by some other reason?
“Are you going to eat that?” Rihkar asked.
Edin didn’t look at the rat and just shook his head. “I’m going to get my cloak and go to sleep,” Edin said.
“Don’t go outside.”
Edin left and began the long circuitous route up the ramp; he found the cloak at the top and looked through the antechamber to the closed door. Everything was still and quiet.
Was the wyrm out there right now?
Edin moved toward the stone door, he touched it as if doing so would let him feel the energy outside.
The door was cold and for a moment he thought of trying to open it. Maybe yelling toward Yechill again. The tribesman had to have left. If thinking Edin had died wouldn’t make him leave, having the thunderwyrm around certainly would.
And Edin didn’t blame him, but now he was stuck in this place, marooned really, with a wild man he didn’t know.
With his white cloak, Edin made his way back down the ramp, the room with the clear metal windows was black as if shutters had been pulled.
Back at the bottom he stopped at the man’s room, the door was shut. He checked the other ones and found one that looked like it had been used recently. One of Rihkar’s dead men maybe…
Edi
n closed the door and wedged a chair under the handle.
He laid down and tried to sleep but his grumbling stomach kept him awake.
Why didn’t they sleep in the city? Edin closed his eyes, tomorrow, he’d have to try and find the Rage Stone.
How could he find it in such a huge underground city? It could take weeks, months, or years maybe. And he’d have to live on rats.
The next morning, or so he thought, Edin woke to a thud against the door. “Boy?” It was Rihkar, and Edin realized he hadn’t told the man his name.
“Yes,” Edin said groggily. The door handle turned and he tried pushing but the chair held firm. “Hold on.”
Edin stood. He was barefoot and wore only his trousers. He grabbed his sword and moved the chair.
Rihkar stood in the frame with a frown. “Locking me out in my own home?”
Edin shrugged.
“It is fine, I will be gone most of the day. There is much of the city I have yet to search.”
“What exactly are you looking for?” Edin asked.
Rihkar eyed him, the firelight flickering in his pupils. “None of your business. I suggest you wait until the wyrm goes and then leave.”
“And how do I do that?”
“There are tunnels blocked by fallen debris, I can move it for you…”
“You’re a mage?”
“We both are,” Rihkar said.
Edin nodded. He was a mage who could move debris. Edin swallowed. His father was a terestio like Dorset. “I cannot leave just yet. I must find what I’m looking for.”
“And what is that?”
“The Rage Stone.”
Rihkar offered no sign of recognition. He either was a great bluffer or he wasn’t looking for the same thing. “What’s your name?”
Edin paused. He looked into the man’s eyes, a bit like his own and told him, “Edin.” He said. “Edin de Yaultan.”
It was a flash, a furious, guttural roar echoed through the room as the old man reached out and grabbed Edin by the lapel. His eyes were on fire as he began running at him and pushing Edin back toward the wall.
Surprised, Edin ran with it. It took barely a moment before his back collided with solid stone and his head flung back and slammed into rock. Pain erupted in his skull.
