They hiked through the Ebrean Forest for over an hour, feeling as if they were traveling in circles. William uttered aloud that he may have picked the wrong direction. Brendan smiled to himself, thinking the same thing but wanting to give his brother the opportunity to voice that notion first.
“Maybe you should choose another way, Brendan, so we can find our way out. I’m getting hungry.”
“What makes you think I’ll fare any better?”
William grunted. “Can it get much worse?”
“I suppose not.” Brendan pointed to a low rise in the ground several yards away. “Let’s hike up that knoll and look for any sign of daylight through the trees. If we see nothing there then we’ll head that way,” he decided, swinging his arm ninety degrees to the right. “I wish the clouds weren’t so thick this morning. I can’t tell where the sun is located. Maybe they’ll thin out as the day wears on.”
“Or before we wear out. I’m so hungry that the tree bark is starting to look good!”
Brendan marched up the knoll as William followed, feeling hungry himself but putting it out of his mind. His first duty was to lead them back to the campsite and then arrange an audience with King Cedric. But if he couldn’t accomplish either soon, all his addresses to William about being a good leader would ring hollow. He wondered if their journey to Drumaya had been such an intelligent idea after all, but as he reached the top of the knoll, his spirits lifted. In the hilly stretch of forest before them, the intoxicating sound of splashing water caught their attention.
“A stream!” William shouted, scrambling down the other side of the knoll and racing toward a narrow waterway flowing among moss covered rocks and creating a series of mini waterfalls. The gentle rush of water emitted a hypnotic language of its own that whispered among the trees. The brothers were soon greedily drinking as if the water itself was a fine meal on its own.
“That definitely hit the spot,” Brendan said moments later as he stood up, brushing the dirt off his trousers. “Now if only a platter of roasted venison would magically appear for our dining pleasure! You wouldn’t turn your nose up at that, would you, Will?” He noticed his brother standing frozen in place, staring off in the distance. “What are you looking at?”
William turned, smiling. “I can’t promise you venison, but would a cabin do?”
“What are you talking about?”
“That!” William pointed to a cluster of trees beyond the stream. “What does it look like to you?”
Brendan strained his eyes and gazed among the distant shadows, confirming his brother’s discovery. “You just made my day, Will. But who could be living out here in the middle of nowhere?”
“Let’s find out,” he said eagerly. “I’ve no objection to sampling some middle-of-nowhere food if you aren’t.”
“If the prince so decrees it, then that’s what we’ll do,” Brendan jovially spoke as he searched out a path of rocks and carefully led them across the noisy stream.
Moments later, he and William emerged through a clump of trees and cautiously approached the two-story cabin built of roughly hewn pine logs in a small clearing. A stone chimney was blackened around its edges, but no swirls of smoke escaped at the moment. Thick wooden shutters sealed any window openings. The front door was closed. Tall grass and weeds, now dried out, had grown messily around the area. Thick clouds passed overhead. Brendan signaled for his brother to follow him around to the side and back, but there the weeds had grown untended among heaps of discarded pine branches. A stack of chopped wood stood piled against the back wall.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s around,” Brendan said.
“From the appearance of this place, it doesn’t seem as if anyone’s been here for quite a while. Shall we go inside?”
Brendan nodded. “But let’s knock to be sure,” he said as they made their way around to the front of the cabin.
A moment later, Brendan rapped his knuckles against the door, though neither expected an answer. He repeated this a second time, and after waiting a few moments in the dense silence of the forest, he decided that the place was temporarily abandoned. He grabbed the handle and pushed the door open, a stale darkness greeting them as they stepped inside.
“Hello,” Brendan called out, his words eaten up in the shadows. “Hello?”
“Guess nobody’s home,” William said, his courage growing.
He walked past his brother and pushed open one of the front shutters, allowing more light into the room. A stone fireplace stood against the side wall, a blanket of cold ashes and charred logs piled inside. An old table in the center of the room was surrounded with a half dozen wooden chairs. Several shelves filled with dishes, clay storage jars and other items lined most of the downstairs walls. A ladder constructed from sturdy oak branches that had been stripped of their bark stood against the back wall and extended through a hole in the ceiling to the room above. When William eyed a cloth sack lying on a narrow counter below another unopened window, he scurried over to examine it. He smiled when he peered into the bag, reaching inside and removing an apple. He tossed it to Brendan before pulling out another one for himself.
“Should we?” Brendan asked.
“If we find any parchment and ink, we’ll leave a note promising to repay the food,” he said with a grimace before taking a bite of the apple. It tasted sweet and crisp, causing him to speculate that perhaps the owner of the cabin had recently been here. “Eat up while we have the opportunity.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Brendan replied, joining his brother in their apple breakfast. As he savored the fruit, he turned around when a rustle of leaves sounded outside the still opened front door. He flinched, startled to see a young deer roaming in the clearing, its nose to the ground searching for a morsel to eat. “I can’t believe it,” he softly said, indicating for William to take a look. “We seem to attract those animals, don’t we?”
William laughed. “If it wasn’t a different deer, I might be suspicious and think we were being followed.”
“Well we’re not feeding it this time,” he said as he promptly closed the door. “Let’s build a fire and warm up, then we can check the upper room. Until we determine our bearings, there’s no point in leaving this place. We might as well make ourselves comfortable.”
Less than an hour later, they were sitting in front of a blazing fire, each having finished a second apple and a bit of dry bread they found wrapped in cloth next to the fruit. They stretched their legs, warming the soles of their boots in the soothing billows of heat.
“Though it’s early, I feel as if I could doze for hours,” William said. “The little sleep I got last night wasn’t the restful sort.”
“There are mattress rolls and blankets upstairs,” Brendan reminded him. “Take a nap if you’d like. We won’t leave for an hour or two until the sun’s higher. Maybe some of the clouds will have burned off by then and we’ll be able to find our way out.” He stood and walked across the room. “In the meantime, I’ll fill one of the containers in the stream. I’m thirsty.” After he spotted a clay pitcher sitting on one of the cluttered shelves, he happened to glance out the window and laughed as a cool draft wafted inside. “Guess who’s still keeping an eye on us, Will?”
“What’s that?” he asked, craning his head back.
“Our friend is nosing about,” Brendan replied, admiring the deer feasting on the vegetation outside. “It must have heard us talking about the apples.”
“Feed him from your share,” William said. He stood and stretched, feeling tired. “I think I will go upstairs and rest. I don’t want to nod off if we ever meet with King Cedric.”
“Go ahead. I’ll be back shortly.” He closed the shutters just as the deer raised its head. “Pleasant dreams.”
“Thanks,” William muttered as he started to climb the ladder to the sleeping loft, his eyelids growing heavier by the moment.
Brendan took the clay pitcher from the shelf and walked to the door, grabbing the handle. “But don
’t expect to sleep away the entire morning,” he amiably warned his brother who was halfway up the ladder. “I’ll wake you when I’m ready to leave.”
“Don’t hurry on my account,” he replied with a yawn.
“Lazy heap,” Brendan said with a chuckle as he swung open the door.
He immediately jumped in fright, startled to petrified attention as he gazed at the shadowy, grotesque figure looming in the doorway. The pitcher fell from his hand and shattered as he stumbled backward, crying out in terrified disbelief. William, his head nearly through the hole in the ceiling, looked down at the sudden commotion and felt his heart grow cold. The wizard Arileez stood tall in the doorway, the lifeless eyes in his skeletal face locking gazes with Brendan. The wizard’s shock of white hair flowing beneath the hood of his battered cloak belied the darkness of thought and purpose coursing through the arteries and nerves of his ancient body. Arileez removed his hood and advanced toward Brendan, the young prince experiencing a strange familiarity emanating from deep within the eyes staring back at him, the exact same eeriness he sensed when looking into the eyes of both Sorli and the buck they had fed along the road. When the initial shock wore off, he found his voice and warned his brother.
“Will, get out of here!” he shouted, scrambling to the fireplace and grabbing a metal poker. He raised it in the air to fend off Arileez, daring him to take another step. “Who are you?”
“Give it to me,” Arileez commanded in a voice both rasping and shrill, draining the hope out of all who heard it.
William looked down at the surreal scene as he hung onto the ladder, feeling as if a dreadful dream had wrapped itself around his mind before he had fallen asleep, yet knowing it was all too true. He had to help his brother. “I’m coming, Brendan!” he said despite the tightening of his vocal cords and the pounding of his heart.
“Stay up there, Will! I’ll follow if I can!” Brendan shouted.
“Enough!” Arileez sputtered, his patience already spent. “Give it to me now.”
“Give you what?” Brendan said, fending him off with the metal poker though forced to take another step back.
“Give me the medallion!” he demanded as he grabbed one of the wooden chairs and hurled it at his foe. Brendan jumped out of the way before it exploded into a cascade of splinters against the stone fireplace, the metal poker falling out of his hand.
“Brendan!”
“We don’t have it!” Brendan shouted, having nearly forgotten about the object as he scrambled to his feet, reaching for the lost weapon. But when he saw Arileez rush toward him, he grabbed a wooden leg from the broken chair and swung it wildly at the wizard, grazing Arileez’s arm before he spun out of the way.
“Enough!” he shouted, rushing at the prince as he attempted to retrieve the metal poker.
But as Brendan grabbed the object and started to raise it, Arileez extended his right arm and made a long sweeping movement through the air. Brendan lurched backward and watched the wizard’s hand move past his chest in seeming slow motion, his eyes wide with disbelief as the tips of the wizard’s fingers liquefied and transformed into a sharp talon of a bird of prey, the pointed, curved weapon quickly enveloping the entire hand. When Arileez brought his arm back to attempt a second swing, Brendan raised the metal poker to keep his attacker at bay, unable to avert his eyes from the fantastical reconfiguration he had witnessed. But in that moment of distraction, Arileez grabbed the fire poker with his left hand and tried to wrench it from Brendan’s grip. When Brendan instinctively turned to pull back, Arileez swiped the talon through the air again, striking him squarely in his abdomen, the razor-sharp tip piercing through the prince’s garments and skin like the icy blade of a merciless sword.
Brendan stood frozen in place as if a jolt of lightning had struck him. Slowly his right fingers uncurled and the piece of metal fell to the floor. In that same moment, he bowed his head and saw the wizard’s talon imbedded in his body, for an instant unable to speak or feel or react, but only watch in muted wonder. Arileez removed the talon with a sudden pull and Brendan collapsed to the floor, his knees buckling under the cold, heavy weight of his body. He lay on his back, hearing William’s terrified screams in the background as his fading eyesight observed the wizard’s talon transform again into a normal hand, only now the five fingers were stained with his own blood. As he helplessly watched Arileez wipe the blood on the folds of his cloak with cruel satisfaction, the sounds around him swiftly diminished until he could hear only the faint beating of his heart. He blinked a few times as the light grew dim and gray and murky, his mind awash in a flood of vivid memories until the young prince of Montavia closed his eyes and then heard and saw no more.
“Brendan?”
Arileez looked up when he heard the frightened call, seeing William hanging onto the upper rungs of the ladder, overwhelmed with shock and disbelief. He stared at his brother’s body, unable to absorb the reality that had just bombarded him. When his gaze locked onto the wizard’s vacant eyes, he felt as if a sharp slap to the face had flung him back to reality.
“I will ask you the same question,” Arileez said, his voice tinged with a seething undercurrent ready to explode if the boy did not provide the answer he sought. “Where is the medallion you removed from the Blue Citadel?”
“We don’t have it!” William said, his eyes burning with tears. “We never did.”
Arileez took a step closer as William simultaneously raised himself up another rung. “I don’t believe you. I was told–”
“I don’t care what you were told. We don’t have it!”
“Who does?”
“Why should I tell you?” William snapped. “Who are you and why do you want it?”
“That’s not your concern. Tell me what I wish to know or I’ll kill you, too.”
“Others took the medallion,” William replied as he gingerly climbed one more rung of the ladder, his head just below the opening. “That’s the truth. I have no idea where they took it. No one else was permitted to know.”
“Who has it?” he sputtered.
“Two others,” he said, for a moment unable to recall Nicholas and Leo’s names, hesitating to mention them for fear they might be tracked. His mind felt on fire as the unyielding pressure from the wizard’s gaze held him with an invisible hold. But using every last bit of strength, he resisted his will. “Their names are unimportant. And beyond that, I swear I know nothing more!”
Arileez seethed at the boy’s defiance, but ratcheted down his grating tone to place the prince at ease and perhaps gain more information. “I was informed that two individuals are seeking out the wizard Frist to have the key to the Spirit Box remade, but you claim not to be one of them,” he replied. “Perhaps I believe you, but I still need to know the location of the wizard whom they seek.”
William swallowed, unsure how long he could stall, certain that Arileez would spring at him once he was convinced that this line of questioning was futile. “We weren’t told that information. Their mission was kept secret. My brother and I were just roaming the countryside for our enjoyment. I give you my word.”
Arileez stroked his chin as he considered his options, believing the boy was telling the truth. Somewhere along the way, the messenger crow had relayed faulty information. “You are sure this is all you know?”
“I swear!” William said.
Arileez shook his head as he looked at the floor, seeming to have made up his mind about what to do. But before the wizard could react, William raced up the final rungs of the ladder and disappeared through the opening into the upper room, fearing he would soon be dead like his brother. The low-ceiling room was dark expect for the outline of pale daylight seeping through cracks around the thick shuttered windows on either end. William rushed to one window and pulled open the shutters, allowing a flood of daylight and cool air into the stuffy room, but the opening was too small to get through. He looked around for anything to use as a weapon or hurl down at the wizard through the floor, but ther
e was nothing except several thin mattress rolls and blankets.
He teetered on the verge of panic as he ran across the floor to the opposite window. As he tore past the opening in the floor, a hand reached up and grabbed him by the ankle. William tumbled face first to the floor and spun around on his back, yanking his foot free from the wizard’s grip as he bashed the heel of his other boot into the bony fingers holding him prisoner.
“Let go!” he shouted as the ghostly figure of Arileez ascended slowly through the hole in the floor, a pale gleam of mindless death in his eyes. But as the wizard tried to raise himself higher on the top rungs of the ladder, he inadvertently loosened his grip, allowing William to pull his leg free and scramble to the other end of the room.
William ripped open the shutters, relieved to find a larger window. He glanced over his shoulder. Arileez had pulled himself up into the room and was ready to spring. William looked out the window and saw the piles of discarded pine branches below, knowing they should cushion his fall when he jumped. He heard footsteps. Arileez was heading his way. No time to think. He had to leave now!
“Stay!” the wizard commanded, lunging at William who was teetering on the narrow sill.
Just as he was about to leap down, Arileez pushed William in the back, causing him to lose his balance and tumble out the window in an uncontrolled fall. The wizard heard the boy cry out as his body disappeared, then all went silent. Arileez stuck his head through the opening and peered at the ground, seeing the prince sprawled out upon a pile of pine branches, eyes closed and face to the sky, his body unmoving. Arileez sighed with irritation, wondering if the trip was worth his effort.
Over the next few minutes, the wizard searched the two bodies and every corner of the cabin, but found no sign of the medallion that Gavin had insisted would be traveling south to Grantwick with these two men. But since he had found nothing here or at their campsite which he had searched hours ago, he accepted the fact that he had been gravely misled and followed the wrong people. After one final sweep of the cabin, Arileez stormed outside, leaving Brendan’s body alone on the cold floor in the somber silence.
Nicholas Raven and the Wizards' Web (The Complete Epic Fantasy) Page 54
