The Mage (The Hidden Realm)

by A. Giannetti

  A cold light lit Elerian’s eyes as he looked at the still form of the Troll. The branch was not a full payment for the pain the Troll had inflicted on him, but it would do for now. When the Troll did not move, Elerian began to hope that the massive blow had killed him. He sped back to the Troll’s cave, running lightly over the massive limbs of the forest canopy. Quickly retrieving his clothes, his pack, the anguis skin, and his silver ring, he left the cave, climbing up the side of the gully before taking to the trees once more. Settling himself on a sturdy branch high above the ground, he dressed quickly. He had just finished with a more thorough job of healing his leg when he heard a familiar, heavy tread.

  “I don’t believe it,” thought Elerian to himself in amazement. “How could any creature survive such a powerful blow to the head?” A moment later, the Troll passed beneath him, muttering angrily to himself with a sound like muted thunder. He never looked up, and Elerian noted with satisfaction that he groaned with each step and kept his right hand pressed to an enormous knot on his forehead. Resisting the urge to taunt the Troll, Elerian remained motionless until Anferth disappeared into his cave.

  Running lightly from branch to branch, Elerian traveled for several miles in a northerly direction across the interlacing network of branches that formed the canopy of the forest, walking lightly across even small branches the width of his palm, his light steps barely disturbing the leaves around him. Elerian was now fairly certain that he had left the Troll behind for good. Even if Anferth did not die from his injuries, he could not track him through the treetops.

  “Still, it will not do to underestimate such a relentless creature,” thought Elerian to himself. “I should travel north until I am certain he is no longer following me. It would be a disaster if such a savage creature followed me back to Hesperia.”

  Elerian continued to travel through the forest canopy until the sun was high in the sky. Only then did he descend to the ground to resume his journey. Walking east through the foothills, he broke up his trail by wading in streams and walking along fallen tree trunks until he reached the Via Magna. There, he turned north once more, traveling through the woods along the right shoulder of the road. He kept a cautious eye out for danger, but nothing troubled him under the light of the sun.

  “Perhaps I should give up traveling at night in this dangerous land,” he thought to himself as the day progressed. “It certainly seems safer.”

  That night, putting into action his earlier thought, he climbed high into a great oak tree a good distance away from the road. Settling himself in a little hollow formed by the junction of several huge branches, he slept for several hours. When he awoke, the night was well advanced. After a sparse meal of biscuits and cheese, he decided to stay where he was until dawn. If nothing else, the rest would benefit his leg, which was still sore. Even though the break was healed, he had used it too hard, too soon. Arranging himself comfortably in his hollow, Elerian drifted into the light half sleep that had become his normal state of repose.

  A SURPRISE ENCOUNTER

  Elerian woke at first light. After eating a scanty breakfast from his diminishing food supplies, he climbed down from his resting place and returned to the road, traveling out of sight in the woods and thickets that bordered its eastern side. He was relieved when the road began to angle to the northeast, moving away from the feet of the mountains and farther from the haunts of the Troll. The country he traveled through now was fairly level, covered with forests and wide meadows. In the meadows, he saw the ruins of old houses along with the remnants of stone walls that must have once divided the fields of farms, but he found no living people. Occasionally, he did find the remains of old campfires, so he knew that someone was still traveling through this desolate land, but what their race was he had no clue.

  By late evening, about thirty miles north of the Troll’s gully, Elerian came to a fork in the road. The main road continued to the northeast, but a second smaller road split off and ran west toward the mountains, which were still visible in the distance. In the wedge shaped space where the two roads split off from each other were the ruins of what must have once been a large inn. The roof had long since fallen in and only the walls remained standing. Elerian cautiously explored the interior, but found nothing of interest inside. It was full of wind-drifted leaves, and grass and shrubs had taken hold in some of the corners that were exposed to the sun. Convinced that the place was long deserted, Elerian sat on the front steps and ate some of his remaining dried fruit. To his right, the sun was slowly sinking behind the mountains, giving their sharp peaks a reddish glow. The mountains put Elerian in mind of the Troll. Had he thrown the creature off his trail or was it even now lurking out in the darkness, creeping closer and closer. It was an unsettling thought, and he began to question the wisdom of remaining in Ancharia any longer.

  “Up to now, my explorations have continued to lead me into one dangerous situation after another with very little to show for it,” he thought to himself. “Perhaps Tullius is right after all. Maybe I should just resign myself to spending the rest of my life as a Hesperian.” It was the easiest and most sensible course for him to follow, but Elerian knew that Balbus would be disappointed in him if he gave trying to rediscover his past.

  “I will travel north one more day, just to make sure the Troll is not still following me,” he decided. “If I find nothing of interest, I will return home. Even Balbus will have to agree with me that any further searching for clues to my past is useless.” Elerian was tempted to walk through the night, but with his encounters with the anguis and the Troll fresh in his mind, he decided to stay put. After curling up under his cloak in a protected corner of the building, he cast an illusion spell over himself. Watching with his third eye, he saw a golden curtain of light spring up around and over him, like a small tent. A tenuous cord of gold led from the veil of light to his right hand, supplying the power that would maintain the spell while he rested. Secure in the knowledge that no one could see him, for the illusion made him indistinguishable from the masonry behind him, Elerian fell, almost instantly, into that peculiar state where his body rested but his mind remained aware of all that went on around him. When he rose in the morning, he felt refreshed, and his sore leg troubled him only a little. After determining that there was no one about, he ended his illusion.

  “No breakfast today,” thought Elerian as he looked into his empty pack, but he was not especially concerned. He would hunt for food later, and in any case, he was certain that he would be returning home after today. It was a fine morning for walking, and after a moment’s consideration, Elerian chose to follow the right hand fork of the road, which, from its size, he took to be the main road. He glided silently under the trees that overshadowed the right hand margin of the old road until a tall gray-skinned beech attracted his attention. Elerian had a particular fondness for beech trees, and since this was the first he had seen in this country, he left the road at once to examine it.

  The beech was a young, clean-limbed tree not over a foot in thickness, and its new leaves glowed like green jewels in the bright sunlight. He laid his right hand on its smooth trunk, extending some of his shade into the tree but met with a familiar, suspicious silence when he attempted to listen to the tree’s thoughts.

  “I am not an enemy,” he said in the secret language of the trees.

  “Half blood,” was all that he heard in reply.

  “Why am I a half blood?” Elerian asked, speaking aloud in his irritation at hearing the term again. Only the rustle of leaves moving softly in the breeze came to his ears. The tree had no more to say to him. Angrily, Elerian turned away. Preoccupied with his thoughts, he missed the heavy tread of feet to his left. A few moments later, barely twenty feet away, a vast, shaggy shape appeared among the trees, its small red eyes glowing like coals. It was one of the great brown bears that lived in the forest, a monstrous beast that could fell a wild ox with one blow of its great paws. The bear gave a forceful huff of exhaled air. Growling angrily, it re
ared up on its hind legs to get a better view of Elerian. Elerian knew he should climb a tree until the bear went on its way, but the irritation he felt inside of him boiled over all at once. He cast a shape-changing spell and felt his form flow and change, growing taller and heavier until he rivaled the bear in size. His flaming green eyes reflected his anger. Opening his mouth, he roared thunderously, until the leaves on the branches overhead trembled.

  The startled bear blinked in surprise. It could not comprehend where Elerian had vanished to, and it no longer cared. After one whiff of Elerian’s rank scent, it dropped to the ground and vanished into the forest, traveling at a tremendous rate of speed. It knew all about Trolls and their appetite for flesh, as did most of the large creatures in that region.

  The sight of the fleeing bear dissipated much of Elerian’s anger. With the bear gone, he found that the Troll form he had assumed did not suit him at all. Feeling as if he were wearing clothes that were desperately in need of a good washing, he quickly changed back to his own shape. Back in his own familiar form, he returned to the side of the road, his good humor restored. He had no other adventures and late in the evening arrived at a small city that straddled the old road. Like Esdras and Arstis, it was in ruins. Whole buildings had been blasted apart as if struck by lightning. “Magic must have played a large part in the war that ravaged this country,” he thought to himself as he followed the road through the center of the city, examining all the devastation around him as he went. He stopped to explore some of the better preserved buildings but found nothing but debris and rubble inside of them. The city appeared to be completely deserted, except for the small animals that had taken possession of it. In its center, the road split again. The main road continued north but a smaller branch road ran east. It was almost full dark now, but Elerian hardly noticed for his night wise eyes pierced every shadow.

  At the junction of the two roads, he noticed, with surprise, that the brush and small saplings growing in the center of the north and east roadways had been cleared away and some of the great paving stones that had been heaved aside by tree roots had been leveled and reset, forming a narrow lane perhaps a dozen feet wide.

  “I wonder who did all this work,” Elerian wondered to himself, “and what their reason was?” Men seemed the most likely candidates, for it seemed unlikely to him that trolls or mutare would concern themselves with roads. “As usual, I am not likely to get any answer to my questions,” he thought wryly to himself.

  Despite the work on the roadways, there was no sign that anyone had used them recently. A deep silence hung over the city, conveying no menace, only the sense that it had been abandoned long ago. “It is pointless to go on,” thought Elerian to himself. “My food is gone and since there is no reason to believe that the Troll is following me, I may as well start for home. I do not think Ancharia holds the answers to any of the questions I seek to answer.”

  As he turned around to retrace his steps, he started. The unexpected sound of voices came to his keen ears through the still night, from somewhere to his left, down the eastern branch of the road. Elerian immediately stepped into the cover of a thicket of saplings and brush growing along the edge of the road. Nothing moved, but he still heard voices in the distance. Like a shadow, he threaded his way under cover along the margin of the eastern road, until he came to the outskirts of the city. The voices were louder, and through the trees to the north of the road, Elerian saw the flickering flames of a large fire. Stealthily, he drew closer. Peering around a wide tree trunk, he saw three slender figures, a little less than his own height, sitting around the fire on the sawn rings of tree trunks. They were dressed in black leather, and their pointed ears clearly showed through their long black hair.

  “Goblins!” thought Elerian to himself, more alarmed than if he had seen three Trolls sitting around the fire. All three of the Wood Goblins seemed preoccupied with drinking some sort of spirit out of large tankards. They were not paying any particular attention to their surroundings and were making no effort to keep their hard-edged voices down. Elerian knew he should retreat at once, but curiosity kept him where he was. He wanted to hear what the Goblins were talking about.

  “Two weeks guarding a filthy animal,” said one disgustedly. “Our drink’s almost gone, and we’ve had no a taste of man flesh the whole time. I say we go and pinch one of those young whelps from the village. If we’re clever, no one will know the difference.”

  “And I say you’re a fool,” said another Goblin, his voice dripping with contempt. “Lurco will be back soon. He’ll be days killing us if he finds anything wrong. You know he means to kill the beast in front of its father if he refuses an alliance with us.”

  “How’s Lurco to find out?” asked the first Goblin irritably. “One of us can stay here to watch the animal while the other two steal one of the brats. We’ll make it look like a wolf or bear took it, and we can burn the bones after. I’ll go myself if you two don’t have the guts.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said the third Goblin who had remained silent up to now. “I’m famished for a bit of proper meat.” He rose and began to gather his gear, as did the first Goblin.

  It sounded to Elerian as if the Goblins were talking about taking a human child, but the talk of an animal confused him. He began to debate with himself what he should do. He finally decided to follow the two who were leaving to see what they were up to.

  The two Wood Goblins left their campsite and set off down to the road in an easterly direction, away from the city. For all the noise they had made in their camp, the Goblins were now silent as shadows. Elerian followed them at a distance, his own steps as light and silent as their own. When they suddenly split apart and entered the woods on opposite sides of the road, Elerian was taken by surprise. He stood motionless behind a thick tree trunk for a long time, listening with his sharp ears, but he heard only the normal sounds of the forest at night.

  “Where have they gone?” he wondered. Suddenly, he had a strong feeling that there was danger behind him. Spinning on his left heel, he saw one of the Goblins standing before him with an upraised knife in his right hand. Elerian instantly seized the Goblin’s slender wrist with his left hand before the Goblin could drive home the black bladed knife he held.

  “Stick him!” shouted a voice to Elerian’s right. “What are you waiting for?”

  Knowing he had to deal quickly with the squirming Goblin in his grip, Elerian struck a heavy blow on the Mordi’s chin with his clenched right fist. The Goblin’s eyes rolled back. When Elerian released him, he sagged to the ground in a lifeless heap. At that moment, Elerian staggered forward, almost tripping over the fallen Mordi, as something leaped onto his back. A slender, sinewy arm wrapped itself around his throat, exerting a crushing pressure on his windpipe. At the same moment, he felt a fiery pain in his back as the Goblin slid his black blade in deep, just below his rib cage.

  “You’re my meat now,” whispered a cold voice in his ear, and red-hot pain shot through Elerian’s lower back as the Goblin twisted his knife blade. Ignoring the pain and the throttling arm around his throat, Elerian reached back over his shoulders with both hands. Seizing the Goblin’s chin and the back of his head in his hands, he twisted the Goblin’s neck until a groan, followed by a dry snap, announced that the Mordi’s neck had broken. The arm around Elerian’s throat relaxed as the lifeless Goblin slid to the ground.

  With a firm pull of his right hand, Elerian drew out the slender Goblin blade buried in his back and dropped it to the ground. Overcome by weakness, he sank to his knees, feeling a warm rush of blood flowing down his back. Clapping his right hand over the wound, Elerian set his healing powers to work at once. His greatest fear now was that the third Goblin might suddenly appear while he was distracted by the healing process. The anxious moments passed slowly by, but thankfully, no Goblin appeared.

  When Elerian was finally able to stand once more, his first act was to determine the condition of the first Goblin that had attacked him. He breathed a
sigh of relief when he found that his one blow had broken the Mordi’s neck, killing him instantly.

  “I am fortunate to be still alive,” thought Elerian to himself. “The woodcraft of these Wood Goblins is remarkable. Somehow, they sensed that I was following them, although I would swear that I never made a sound. Then, they skillfully set up an ambush without my hearing or seeing a thing. Only luck or some sixth sense saved me from their knives.”

  Using all his skill and stealth, Elerian crept back to the campfire, but there was no sign of the third Goblin. The Mordi had heard the sounds of the struggle, but when his companions did not call out or reappear, he had retreated into the forest. He and Elerian played cat and mouse for several long moments. Such was their skill, that neither could get a glimpse of the other. Elerian finally decided to try his trick with the Troll shape once more. Quietly, he shed his pack and gear before changing his shape. After waiting until he was sure his enemy was somewhere in front of him, he suddenly rushed out of his hiding place from behind a wide tree trunk. The Goblin chose that very moment to peer cautiously around the edge of his own tree. The first thing he saw was the fearsome shape of a Troll bearing down on him. His eyes widened with fear, and his whole body stiffened before he suddenly whirled around and fled into the forest behind him in a tremendous burst of speed that carried him out of Elerian’s sight in an instant.

  Elerian made no attempt to follow. Instead, he began to laugh in deep, rumbling tones that caused the air to tremble around him. The sight of the Goblin’s eyes grown large as saucers had tickled his sense of humor, and he wondered how far the creature would run before it got over its panic. As he changed back into his own shape, he thought this might be a good time for him to make his own retreat, leaving this dangerous land behind him for good.