by A. Giannetti
“Creatures such as these are better encountered in some tale that is being told in a snug house in front of a warm fireplace,” thought Balbus to himself. “It is quite another matter to meet them in a dark forest and to suddenly discover that they are planning on tearing you to pieces.”
Despite the deaths of the wolves, Balbus was not at all certain that he and Elerian were safe. The creatures might have been part of a larger pack. Even now, others of their kind might be drawing near, red-eyed shadows leaping through the gloom of the forest with murder on their minds. Balbus shuddered at the thought. Another attack would surely prove fatal to all of them, for he and Carbo were in no condition to repulse even one wolf let alone a whole pack of them.
“I need to return home as soon as I can,” he thought to himself. Behind the stout walls of his house, he could defy any number of wolves. He took a last look at the nearest wolf, wondering to himself where it might have come from. For the first time, he noticed something odd about the ruff of black fur which circled its neck. It was slightly raised as if something lay beneath the coarse hairs.
“If I am not mistaken, the creature is wearing a collar,” Balbus thought to himself in alarm. Parting the long hairs, which covered the wolf’s neck, with his thick fingers, Balbus exposed part of a slender collar that circled the animal’s neck. It appeared to be made of black iron, smooth surfaced but of a dull black color that gave out not the slightest gleam.
“These are not wild beasts,” he thought to himself with dismay as he spread the hairs for a better look at the collar. Inadvertently, one of his fingers brushed against it, and an odd, unpleasant sensation jumped the length of his right arm, as if something was being drawn out of him into the collar. Instinctively, he jerked his hand away, and the disagreeable feeling stopped at once.
“I hope I have not done something wrong,” Balbus reproached himself. “I should have guessed that the collar might be enchanted and better left alone.” He knew, all too well, that some spells, like the one which animated his staff, could be activated with just a touch of a hand. Anxiously, he waited to see if he had set in motion some evil spell which resided in the collar. When nothing happened, he let his breath out in a sigh of relief, and began to consider the implications of his unpleasant discovery.
“If these creatures have a master, then I need to hide their bodies and leave some sort of false trail in case someone comes searching for them,” he thought wearily to himself. He wracked his brain for some suitable plan, for the open forest was no easy place to hide something without suitable tools. Beneath its covering of leaves, the ground was filled with a multitude of tough roots. Even a sharp shovel would make little impression on it.
“I have no time to dig in any case,” thought Balbus to himself. “Whatever action I take must be done quickly. It will be dark all too soon.”
Without much hope, he looked all around him. For the first time, through the trees on his right, he saw a ray of sunshine which pierced the gloom like a bright sword. It illuminated the form of an old lightening blasted oak tree that had toppled during some great storm, leaving a hole in the leafy canopy above it. As he walked closer to it, Balbus saw that the thick trunk ended in a great ball of twisted roots which still tenaciously gripped the earth that had lain between them. This mass of roots and earth had kept the tree from settling completely to the ground. Between the trunk and the ground, there was a small space resembling a shallow cave.
“It may not be the best place,” thought Balbus to himself, “but I cannot risk a longer search. If I do not bring the boy out of these woods before it grows dark there will be more than wolves to worry about. All of the beasts of prey that dwell under these trees will emerge from their dens in search of a meal when the sun goes down.”
With his mind made up, Balbus left Carbo to guard Elerian, who still had not stirred even a little. Slowly and with great labor, Balbus dragged the first wolf over to the fallen tree. The creature was far heavier than he had expected, and he was forced to sit and rest for a moment on a large root to recover his strength once he reached the fallen tree. He stared irritably at the dead wolf lying limply at his feet.
“Even in death, this creature seeks to make my life difficult,” Balbus thought grumpily to himself. Having recovered somewhat, he pushed the heavy body of the wolf into the cavity under the tree, keeping well clear of the collar as he did so. With slow, tired steps, he walked back for the second body. He noted that the second beast also wore a collar. Balbus was careful to avoid touching it as he sought to free his walking stick which was still clenched tightly between the wolf’s jaws. Balbus was sweating freely and muttering all sorts of unkind things about the wolf and all its extended family by the time he managed to pry the staff loose from the stubborn jaws of the beast. During the struggle, it seemed to him that the wolf’s eyes glinted maliciously as if, even in death, it sought to hinder him. Regretfully, once he had the staff in his hand, Balbus saw that the wolf’s teeth had left deep punctures in the smooth brown wood of the staff.
“It could have been worse I suppose,” thought Balbus to himself. “The beast could have left the marks of its teeth in my leg or an arm instead of the staff, in which case I would not be standing here now I am sure.”
Laboriously, he dragged the second body over to the tree and pushed it underneath the trunk next to the first wolf. Carefully, he piled rocks, leaves, and broken branches across both sides of the opening, sealing it up and covering the bodies from view in a way that was as natural as possible. Finally, he painstakingly brushed out the carpet of leaves between the tree and the scene of the fight, using both his hands and a branch so that everything looked as undisturbed as possible.
Balbus then sat down on a thick, knotted oak root to catch his breath. “I am too old for this sort of thing,” he thought regretfully to himself. “The boy has found himself a poor champion to rescue him.” After a few moments, he reluctantly got up again, for he was as sweaty and fatigued as if he had labored the whole day long in his fields under a hot sun.
Unnoticed by Balbus, Elerian had regained consciousness. When Balbus walked over to his side, he was sitting quietly on the ground next to Carbo. Balbus had thought of a second ruse, involving the boy’s tunic, which might throw off their pursuers if they were followed. Carefully, he took off the garment, leaving Elerian clad only in the thin gray shirt he wore beneath it. Elerian did not object to the loss of his tunic, almost as if he had guessed at Balbus’s reason for taking it. Although stained and torn, the thin fabric of which the tunic was made felt wonderfully smooth to Balbus’s work hardened brown fingers. He tugged on the cloth with both hands and found it surprisingly difficult to tear.
“Come here Carbo,” said Balbus. “We must confuse the trail a little more. Tear this tunic with your teeth so that it will appear to have been torn by the wolves.”
Balbus handed Carbo one end of the tunic, and as if he understood what was expected of him, Carbo tugged vigorously at the cloth with his teeth until Balbus was satisfied with the damage they had inflicted on the garment. Taking the tattered tunic in his right hand, Balbus used it to wipe the blood from Carbo’s fur and then rubbed it vigorously into the blood which had pooled beneath Carbo when he collapsed from his wounds. When it was thoroughly stained, Balbus left it lying on the ground and erased all signs of the battle with the wolves as well as he could. When he was done, he surveyed his handiwork.
“It has taken me longer than it should, and I doubt it will fool anyone for long,” he thought to himself, “but at least there is a chance that if we are followed, those pursuing us will believe Elerian was killed and eaten by the wolves.”
He looked up at the green canopy of leaves overhead. “A little rain would help too, in case there are more wolves about,” he thought to himself, “but there is little chance of that.” It was midsummer, and it had not rained for a number of weeks now.
After picking up Elerian with left arm and his walking stick with his right hand, Balbus b
egan walking wearily toward his home once more. Before long, the trees in front of him abruptly dwindled in size. He felt a sense of relief wash over him, for they had come to the end of the Abercius at last. He was amazed at how far into that dangerous forest he had traveled without realizing it.
“What a day I have had,” he said to the Elerian who still seemed tense and watchful. “I shall be glad to be inside my own snug house again,” he said cheerfully, for he was beginning to feel more at ease now that they were near the base of his own hill that was so familiar to him.
The ground began to rise. Balbus was now in a part of the forest that he knew well. He no longer bothered to follow his staff which tended to take the most direct but not necessarily the best route. As he trudged slowly along, a light evening breeze sprang up and began to gain strength. The air was suddenly filled with the rustle of leaves tossing in the wind and the creaking of swaying tree limbs. When Balbus skirted a small meadow, he was startled to see that puffy black clouds were blowing in from the east, bringing with them the damp smell of rain.
“Now that is an odd ending for a strange day,” thought Balbus wonderingly to himself as the wind whipped his hair about. “It rains so seldom at this time of year, and there was not a cloud in the sky this morning. One would almost think the storm was sent on purpose to cover our tracks,” he thought to himself with an uneasy glance at Elerian, but the boy was fast asleep and unlikely to be the responsible for the approaching storm.
The prospect of rain heartened Balbus, for it would foil any pursuit. Renewed strength flowed through him, and his flagging steps became longer and more vigorous as he hurried through the darkening forest. He walked quickly over familiar paths where he knew every twist and turn. When he finally stepped into the cleared space before the tall hedge that marked the boundary to his farm, the sun was already far down in the west, dipping behind the sharp, bare peaks of the Galerius. Its fading light turned the undersides of the gathering storm clouds red and orange, but the masses of cloud above the reach of the sun’s light were an ominous black. Jagged bolts of lightning gleamed suddenly on the peaks, and moments later, a great, rumbling crack thundered through the air above Balbus and Elerian, startling the boy awake. Bracing himself against the wind, which thrust itself against his back like a powerful hand, Balbus opened the gate which led through the hedge and stepped through with Carbo at his heels. Relief flooded through him as he pushed it closed against the wind, for he was almost home.
THE FARM
As Balbus followed the track that led up to his house, a loud rustling sound arose from the broad, three pointed grape leaves on either side of the path as they fluttered wildly in the stiffening wind. Moments later, rain began to fall in scattered, heavy drops that were blown violently about by the intensifying wind. Elerian buried his face in Balbus’s shoulder, and his black locks tossed wildly about in the wind as Balbus hurried his steps, anxious to reach his house before the storm broke in earnest.
Relief flooded through Balbus when he finally reached his front door. After unlocking it, he paused for a last look at the forest stretching away below him all the way to the limits of his vision. A bolt of lightening suddenly crackled among the clouds in the distance. Its stark white light briefly illuminated the wind tossed leaves of the trees in the distance. Balbus thought they looked like a dark sea rolling uneasily beneath the storm clouds gathered overhead.
A tremendous boom of thunder followed the lightening, and all at once, the rain began coming down in cold gray sheets, whipped furiously about by the storm. Carbo was already inside, and Balbus hurried through the open doorway after him, closing the heavy door behind him. The wind and rain were shut out; but the farmhouse was filled with the drumming sound of heavy raindrops on the roof.
After locking and barring the door, Balbus breathed a sigh of relief as he hung his walking stick on its accustomed peg to the left of the door. Safe at last behind the stout walls of his home, he felt that he could now resist any number of enemies if they showed up at his front door. Although it was dark inside the farmhouse, Balbus moved confidently across the familiar room in front of him until he reached a heavy wooden table in the center of the room. There was a lamp in the middle of the table, and although he could not see it, Balbus could picture its familiar shape clearly in his mind, a rounded ball of age-darkened bronze that was supported on three bent legs whimsically cast in the shape of clawed dragon’s legs. With sure fingers, Balbus reached for the top of the lamp. It was actually a hinged cover with a knob in its center, cast in the form of a snarling dragon’s head. Grasping the knob with the fingers of his right hand, Balbus lifted the cover, and the darkened room was suddenly flooded with a warm yellow light. The source of the light was a round glass ball about four inches in diameter that rested in the lamp’s hollow bottom half. Balbus had owned the lamp for many years, but its light never dimmed, and the glass never grew hot to the touch, for it was a magical lamp made by the Dwarves of Ennodius for sale in foreign lands.
The steady glow of the lamp was reflected by the dark, polished oak boards which covered the thick stone walls and ceiling. It raised a softer gleam from the large, smooth gray flagstones that formed the floor of the room. Beyond the table, set in the wall opposite the front door, was a stone fireplace with a polished oak mantel. Above the mantel, hung on two wooden pegs driven between the stones of the chimney, was a sword with a plain bronze hilt and up curving guards of unadorned steel. Two heavy, comfortable chairs of polished oak were pulled up in front of the fireplace. Along the wall to the left of the door was a wooden stairway which led to a snug loft beneath the peaked roof. Most of the right hand wall of the room was given over to shelves filled with books, for Balbus was fond of reading in the evenings. To the right of the fireplace was a wood trimmed doorway which led to a neat kitchen. The kitchen had a single window in its back wall that overlooked the road which ran behind the house. There were two doors. The door in the left wall led to a bathroom. The door on the right opened into the passageway which connected the house to the barn. An air of comfort and security filled the house and made a favorable impression on Elerian who was curiously examining everything in sight as he sat on Balbus’s arm.
Balbus set Elerian down on one of the chairs by the fireplace and stretched his weary left arm. Carbo had already shaken the rain off his fur and was waiting expectantly for Balbus to remove his spiked collar. As soon as the collar was gone, Carbo curled up on a thick gray wool rug that lay between the two chairs in front of the fireplace and fell at once into an exhausted sleep.
“You sit here for a moment and warm yourself while I make us something to eat,” Balbus told Elerian as he wrapped him in a heavy wool cloak he took from a second peg by the front door. Elerian did not understand Balbus’s words, but he sat quietly with his short legs dangling over the side of the chair and the cloak tented over his head like a hood. He felt safe in the comfortable farmhouse, and his bright eyes gleamed as he watched Balbus to see what he would do next.
Balbus set Carbo’s collar and his wicker basket off to the right of the fireplace on the floor. Then, with the ease of long practice, he stirred the thick bed of ashes in the fireplace with an iron poker, exposing several coals that glowed orange in the middle of the gray ash that covered the hearth. For a moment, they reminded Balbus of the flaming eyes of the wolves he had fought in the forest, and he shuddered a little at the unwelcome memory. He added dry kindling to the fire from a wooden box next to the fireplace, and as the kindling caught; he added larger pieces of wood until he had a bright fire crackling on the hearth. A welcome warmth spread across the room from the dancing, orange flames.
Leaving Elerian to warm himself by the fire, Balbus entered the kitchen and uncovered a second mage lamp that sat on a small table in the middle of the room. Immediately, a cheerful yellow light flooded the room. The ceiling, like that of the other room, was covered with gleaming oak boards, but the walls were bare, exposing the inner face of the gray stone which made up
the walls of the farmhouse.
Balbus quickly stirred up the fire in the polished black iron stove that stood against the right hand wall. From a shelf above the stove, he took a small iron kettle and half filled it with water from a pump that sat on a stone counter under the window. After adding vegetables from his garden and some salt and dried meat, he set the kettle on the stove to boil.
Tiredly, Balbus turned away from the stove, then started and almost dropped the long wooden spoon he had used to stir the pot. He had thought he was alone in the kitchen, but Elerian was standing by the small table, wrapped in his cloak which was so long it trailed on the floor behind him. Balbus was unnerved by how quietly the boy had entered the room.
“You gave me a start there Elerian,” said Balbus in a shaky voice, for he was still on edge from his adventures in the forest. He sat Elerian in one of the two chairs pulled up under the table, and the boy watched with great interest as Balbus set the table with two polished wooden bowls and two spoons, also made of wood. He also set out two wooden cups and poured wine for himself and milk for the boy.
Bored with sitting on the chair, Elerian left his cloak behind and leaped off the chair in a single lithe move. He then wandered around the room, under Balbus’s watchful eye, examining everything within reach. Balbus noted with surprise how quick and sure his movements were, more like the movements of a wild thing than those of a young child, and he wondered, again, what the boy’s history might be. Most of all, he wished he knew why the two wolves had wanted the boy. If it was a case of simple murder to gain a meal, then the whole affair might now be over; but if they had some other purpose in pursuing the boy, there might be a great deal of trouble still to come.
“I must hope for the best, but the collars the beasts wore do not bode well,” thought Balbus to himself as he added flour to thicken the stew. The rain drumming steadily on the roof, and the wind which whined about the eaves helped to allay his fears a little, for they would present a great difficulty for anyone still pursuing the boy.
