Medallion of the Undead

by Anthony Rudzki

  “And Jennifer?” Adam asked.

  “I don’t think it is a coincidence she was taken after we found the button and Kalaldi was killed. I think, somehow, they are tied together.”

  “Maybe Kalaldi’s death has nothing to do with you. Maybe someone just wanted him dead. I’m sure that magic-users make some powerful enemies,” Adam said.

  “And my father? How many enemies does a farmer make?” Kyle asked.

  “I don’t know. But what if we don’t find anything? What do we do then about finding Jennifer?”

  Kyle shook his head. “I don’t know, but I may have to turn myself in so I can speak to the council, to get their help.”

  “The council? They will lock you up before they listen to one word you have to say.”

  “They may be my only hope for finding Jennifer. Odd happenings since my father found that silver button. What was it that Kalaldi said? ‘A slip of the tongue, can begin the clockwork of unforeseen and unintended consequences.’”

  Kyle began hiking in the direction of Allenon.

  Chapter Six

  Kyle walked behind his friend, silently wishing he’d told him the entire story, but Adam would be safer not knowing. As the miles passed under their feet however, Kyle thought about his father, dead on the cottage floor, and decided it was foolish to imagine safety anymore. Once they stopped, he’d tell Adam about the medallion, show him the effects of its power, and recount his meeting with the wizard. He owed him that much.

  The two young men stopped as the light was beginning to dim. They paused long enough to eat a little food and discuss where they might be. They both noticed the woods were thinning out and were conscious of possible escape routes should they sight strangers in the distance once they got closer to town.

  They finished their food and started walking again, the darkness slowing their pace, but fortunately the full moon allowed them to continue without needing to fashion torches, calling attention to themselves. They continued on, until exhaustion finally overtook them and they stopped near a large grove of trees.

  Kyle carefully gathered some stones and made an arrow on the ground to remind him of the direction they were traveling.

  Adam unpacked their blankets and the two huddled together for warmth close to the base of a large tree, and hid among the high grass.

  * * * *

  Kyle woke to the sound of a screaming bird. The high pitched warbling sound rousted him from a dream of Jennifer. They were playing a game of ‘Catch Me’, and try as he might, he could never lay a hand on her. Every time he got close, she would disappear, only to reappear some distance away.

  He rubbed his eyes and saw it was still night, but dawn was approaching. The eastern horizon was starting to just show signs of daylight. He woke Adam with a gentle jostle to his shoulder. After packing up and examining the stones he’d left, Kyle was soon leading the way through the woods once again. They continued on until they finally stepped into the clear. They followed the tree line for several miles until they stumbled upon the crushed gravel lane of the Barrows Road. Eventually they saw a wooden sign indicating they were headed in the correct direction for Allenon, still ten miles away.

  Allenon was another large town built up by the constant flow of human travelers along the Barrows Road which snaked through the stone enclosed walled town. While Whiteforge was primarily an outpost for needed supplies, equipment repairs and other trades, Allenon was a true town and a major trading hub and boasting of a permanent population of six thousand occupants.

  Flanked on one side by the Copper River and the ore-rich western mountains on the other, the town had enjoyed prosperous times for as far back as most could remember. Raw materials as well as finished goods left Allenon to all quarters. To the Southeast was the Rollins Forest, a vast wooded area known for its dense oaks and pine, and named for the largest logging family in the area. The Meadowlands were also plentiful with large and small game as well as large numbers of various fowl. The Tanners of Allenon were widely known as some of the best craftsmen in the world.

  When they were within sight of the walls of Allenon they began to see a sprinkling of travelers, most walking but a good number on horseback or behind a team pulling wagons in the direction of the large town. More than a few hardy welcomes were called out to them and they returned the greetings, fitting in with the travelers while their recent past fell heavily upon their wary shoulders. The short sleep under the trees and the need to always be on guard for dangers was beginning to take its toll on the two young men. When they passed through the walls and into the town proper, they stopped to take a look around at the early morning bustle, and were almost run down by a wagon following behind them.

  “Mind yourselves,” the driver called to them as he pulled his team more to the left to avoid the two, and before Adam or Kyle could say anything in protest, he was gone on to the business at hand.

  “Kyle, look at this place, it’s huge. Look at all the people.”

  “Whiteforge could sit in the shadow of Allenon with room to spare. And when was the last time you saw that many wagons at the same time?”

  Adam yawned and then instead of answering, he turned his head, taking in the activity and the commerce moving from one side of the town to the other and beyond.

  “We need to find ourselves an inn and get some sleep,” Kyle said and started scanning the sides of the thoroughfare for a placard announcing a place to stay. They started walking again and ten minutes later, when Kyle was starting to feel hopeless from exhaustion, he spun around looking across the street and failed to see a young woman with a small child in tow, stepping through an open gate in front of him.

  “Oh, pardon,” he called, stumbling to avoid the collision. He regained his footing and found himself smiling in spite of his embarrassment.

  “Why hello. I don’t think I’ve seen you around. Are you new in town?” she asked. “My name is Penny. Penny Norton and I work here at the laundry. And this is my little brother Robert.” She held up her hand, firmly grasped around the smaller one’s hand.

  “Hello,” Robert said quietly. He stared at the ground and tugged at Penny’s hand.

  She brushed her long hair behind her ear and smiled brightly.

  Kyle was momentarily struck by the young beauty, when Adam piped up and extended his hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Penny. My tongue-tied friend here is named Paul and I’m Brian. We’re brothers, who are traveling a bit south to a farm owned by our Aunt. We have been on the road for two days and when we found we were within travel of Allenon, we decided to spend the day here rather than pass through and continue on. Paul, say something. Don’t let the young lady think you’re daft.”

  “Can we go?” Robert piped in, pulling more forcefully on Penny’s hand.

  “Robert, in a minute,” Penny said, the smile on her face faltering.

  Kyle smirked. “Brian thinks he’s funny. Penny, do you know of a nearby inn where we could get a room, perhaps something hot to eat?”

  “If you step off the main road here, and go down that way,” she pointed, her slender arms toned from carrying baskets of wet laundry, Kyle supposed, “You’ll find several nice inns. I think ‘The Swan’s Nest’ is nice, but others swear by the ‘Restful Place’. Either doesn’t cost very much and both are known for their good food. If you go to the Nest, tell Mrs. Conners I sent you and she’ll take care of you.”

  “Let’s go.” Robert yanked on Penny’s hand again, bouncing several times, trying to pull free.

  “Thank you. Maybe we’ll see you again,” Kyle said, and started walking with Adam in the direction of the inns.

  “Robert…No!” Penny yelled as Robert succeeded in breaking free and ran into the lane. He turned to look back at his sister and twisted his feet around one another and fell to the ground.

  Kyle turned when he heard Penny’s voice call out in surprise and then panic. He looked back at her, frozen in place and then out into the street where Robert lay on the ground. He saw a large
wagon, pulled by a team of two horses clatter around the far corner of the street and head toward them.

  “Robert!” Kyle called to the boy as he darted out into the street in front of the speeding wagon. As he ran forward, he waved his arms over his head at the driver, but the man’s attention was elsewhere. He was looking off to one side, oblivious to the young boy in his path.

  Kyle scooped the boy in his arms. The sound of the horses thundered in his ears. The clatter of the wooden buckboard and the metal fittings filled the air. Kyle leapt forward and tumbled to the ground, cushioning Robert as well as he could, but the two fell heavily on the loose stone.

  Penny’s paralysis broke as the wagon passed in a cloud of dust and turned a corner, the sound of the horses and wagon disappearing in seconds. She darted across the road and found Kyle and Robert in the road, Robert standing, Kyle on one knee next to him.

  “Are you okay?” Kyle asked him a second time when he didn’t receive an answer the first time.

  “My knee.” Robert said, pointing at the small dirty cut that bled a thin trickle down his leg.

  “Oh the gods, are you alright?” Penny asked as she grabbed the small boy and pulled him close, covering his face in kisses, pausing and then squeezing him all over again.

  “You have a tough little fighter there.” Kyle said, happy to see the smile on the boy’s face when he said it. He looked up the road and then ushered Penny and Robert away from it and against the fence.

  “I don’t know…” Penny tried to speak, but tears filled her eyes and emotion choked her words back.

  “It’s alright.” Kyle said and suddenly felt Penny’s arms around his neck, her warm breath against his ear.

  “Thank you.” She whispered over and over, finally breaking free and laughing at the sight of his blushing face and shy smile.

  “We…um…need to get going.” Kyle said backing away and bumping into Adam standing nearby.

  They both started walking in the direction that Penny showed them earlier. Adam turned his head and saw Penny staring after them.

  “See you later.” He called and waved.

  “Maybe you will,” Penny whispered, watching Kyle walk off. She took Robert’s hand and they walked toward home.

  * * * *

  Kyle and Adam stepped through the inn’s door and looked around before being greeted by a plump, bespangled older woman who came out from behind the small counter.

  “Welcome, welcome. My name is Mrs. Conners and I am the proprietor of The Swan’s Nest. Are you two young men looking to stay with us?”

  Kyle returned the matron’s smile. “Yes, we are. We were recommended to your inn by Penny Norton. She said this was a fine place to stay in town.”

  “Aye, she would be right if I may say so. Penny is such a fine young girl. We have several rooms available. As you can see…” She gestured to the rest of the spacious main floor, “We have a small sitting area for nice conversation in the evenings, a large dining area for you and any of your guests and a large fireplace. We usually start a little fire come dusk when there’s a chill in the air. We begin serving dinner at dusk also, but if you gentlemen would rather dine in your rooms simply notify the chambermaid with your request. Would you gentlemen be sharing a room?”

  “Yes, we will,” Kyle said.

  “Fine, fine. The room is five silver per day. How long will you be staying, young sir?” Mrs. Conners said, moving back behind her counter and pulling a key from one of the hooks on the wall behind her. She motioned for Adam and Kyle to come over to the counter. Rotating the thick reservation book around, she dipped a writing probe in a bottle of ink and offered it between the two. Kyle took the probe and scratched their names onto the parchment page. Turning it around, Mrs. Conners said, “Welcome Misters Hawthorne.”

  The young girl took the key from Kyle and unlocked the door. She rushed in ahead of the two men and threw the shades to the one small window open, flooding the room with light. It was a simple room, with two single beds, an unlit, but tendered fireplace and a small table and chair. She put the key down on the table.

  “If you like, come evening, I can start the fire for you, additional wood is in the back of the inn and is available should you run low. Dinner, as Mrs. Conners says is available at dusk, but if you summon me I can bring your meals up here. There is a rope in the corner for that purpose. My name is Kelly.” Kelly smiled and excused herself and was gone in an instant.

  “Am I imagining things or are all the females in Allenon beautiful?” Adam asked.

  Kyle locked the door to the room and lay down on one of beds. He closed his eyes and said in a voice already sleepy, “I don’t think you’re imagining things.”

  * * * *

  Adam woke first to the sound of Kyle’s rumbling snoring. He looked around the room and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. The sunlight was still bright in the room. Adam stood, stretched his legs and was going to pull the rope to summon Kelly to order some food, when he thought it would be a better idea to wake Kyle and they could both go downstairs and get something to eat. He stepped over to the bed where his friend lay sleeping and grabbed him by the shoulder and gave him a shake.

  Kyle jerked awake and leapt back and slid off the far side of the bed with a thud.

  “What the…Kyle are you okay?” Adam’s voice filled with concern at the reaction of his friend.

  Kyle’s breathing was rapid. He stood and looked at his gloved hands. Only then did his breathing slow. “We need to talk.”

  “Talk? That sounds serious. What do we need…?” Adam stopped when Kyle removed his gloves and he caught sight of the glowing runes.

  He stepped forward to get a closer look, but Kyle stopped him.

  “You were wondering how I was able to stop the assassin who killed my father. I touched him with my fingers and he died. Pull up a chair and let me tell the whole story about the carriage, Kalaldi in Whiteforge and what happened at the farm.”

  Kyle put the gloves back on and told Adam the details that he had left from the original telling of the story. When he finished, Adam sat in silence. Finally, he sighed deeply and simply said, “Alright, let’s take a look at those documents you took from Kalaldi’s and see if we can figure out if there is something he wrote down that will tell us what the spell is.”

  * * * *

  “Are you angry with me?” Kyle asked quietly, afraid of how his friend was going to respond.

  “Angry? No, disappointed. From now on, we tell each other everything, alright?”

  “Alright, no more secrets.” Kyle said. A reluctant smile appeared on his face. Have I made things better or worse and drawn my friend deeper into whatever is happening to me, he wondered.

  With them both satisfied with the new agreement, Kyle retrieved the papers he’d taken from Kalaldi and put them on the desktop. Randomly, they picked up the scraps and read them, not sure what information was valuable and what was speculation or an incorrect assumption on the elders’ part.

  Adam unfolded one of the pieces and gave it to Kyle. It contained a drawing and scattered notes. “What is it? The drawing looks like two circles.”

  “The drawing looks like the runes on my palm. There are several words here, but two are lined out and the third, Kurilan, is circled. I’ve never heard of that. Is it a town? Somewhere we should be going for answers?”

  Adam reached over and pulled at a corner of the paper, tilting it enough that he could read the text also. “Death? Rising? Released? Kyle, what is all of that?”

  Kyle touched the paper and followed the writing with his fingertip. In several places the ink was smeared, the message lost forever.

  “I don’t know. Maybe the medallion can raise the dead. Maybe I can too since I have the runes on my hand.”

  “But I thought you said that the assassin died when you touched him. He didn’t get raised from the dead.”

  “I don’t know,” Kyle nearly screamed, the frustration from not having the answers finally boiling over.
r />   “Look…” Adam started.

  “Adam, I’m sorry. It’s just…I thought Kalaldi would have the answer. Would cure me. I was hoping this would all be over. Now, Jennifer is gone, I have no idea where and the only thing I have is the word Kurilan, and I don’t even know what that is.”

  Adam put his hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “Maybe Kurilan is what Kalaldi ate for dinner last night.” He laughed.

  Kyle held off for moment, and then joined his friend, dropping the paper to the table and pacing the room.

  Adam picked up the paper and held it closer to the light. He licked the tip of his finger and rubbed at one of the smears on the paper. “What does undead mean?”

  Kyle leapt to his friend’s side and snatched the paper from his hand. Pulling his glove off, he looked from the rune on the paper to the one on his palm. Pained that it was one in the same, he slowly put his glove back on.

  “So, what is it?”

  “My father told me about them. When Gnorepenne fell, he said the whole area around the city contained the undead.”

  Adam rolled his eyes and sighed. “Okay, so what are they?”

  “The undead are people. Dead people. They can do most of the things that regular people can do, except they have no fear of death. One of the stories my father told me was of a patrol that found one wandering in the woods. It had only a dagger in its hand, no armor. It didn’t hesitate for a moment and attacked the patrol. They stopped it, of course, but the story goes it fought ferociously.”

  “So what did they…? I mean…?” Adam asked, puzzled.

  “The corpse? They burned it.”

  Kyle was quiet, lips fixed, deep in thought. He whispered low enough that Adam couldn’t understand him.

  “What?” Adam asked.

  “The spell. Kalaldi translated the runes to be a spell to do with undead creatures. It could be to stop them, but I don’t think so, not after what happened to the man in my house. Maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe it creates them? Turns living men undead or turns the dead undead.”