Crown of Kings

by GJ Kelly

“We work mostly at night,” the dwarf informed them when he saw their curious expressions. “It is too hot during the day.”

  Garin was so cold he could barely feel his toes and this dwarf was saying it was hot! But he was thankful all the same for it would have been almost impossible to enter the mines with that noise.

  The light of day faded quickly as they went inside the cavern entrance, only to be replaced with a glowing orange light that cast an odd hue about their faces. This cavern did not appear to be used for anything other than an entrance and there were several well-crafted metal chairs along one wall. The light was emanating from tunnels which led off in all directions and some glowed brighter than others. There was no sign of any other dwarves.

  “Wait here, I will fetch the Overlord,” the grumpy dwarf demanded. He pointed to the chairs and then glared at Drake’s huge frame. “Try not to break them.”

  They walked quietly over to the chairs, Drake chose to stand, and waited. Nobody spoke and the silence became heavy and uncomfortable. Drake shifted from foot to foot and finally sank down against the wall to rest. Time passed slowly and it was an age later that the little man came back.

  “The Overlord is overseeing the casting of a special project,” the dwarf told them bluntly and then seemed disapproving. “He wishes you to join him in the casting cave.”

  They followed the dwarf down one of the tunnels, passing by many more which led off the sides. Garin knew it would be easy to get lost down here and kept his eye on the little dwarf so as not to lose sight of him. They began to see other dwarves, mostly peering at them from darkened corridors or running away ahead of them when the trio came into sight. It seemed they were not used to seeing strangers.

  The casting cave, which was almost as large as the entrance cavern, glowed bright orange and it took several seconds for Garin’s eyes to adjust to the light. Several deep, open pits of glowing lava, swirling and bubbling, lay in the centre of the room and Garin’s attention was transfixed by them. There were several dozen dwarves in the cave and they were bent over tables and discussing pictures that were scratched on the dirt floor. Several dwarf children ran into the cave and were chased out again by the adults. Garin stared at the young dwarves as they ran out, realising that one of the children wasn’t a dwarf at all, he was a human boy of about three or four years old. Something about the boy looked strangely familiar but Garin couldn’t put his finger on what it was. He was still frowning over what reason a human boy would have for being here when a dwarf walked towards them.

  “You wish our help?” he asked formally but not impolitely. “Taran here tells me the king of the south sent you.”

  “Yes, Your…” Garin paused. What did one call the overlord of the dwarves? “Yes, Sir.”

  Garin motioned for Drake to come forward and the young warrior let the backpack drop gently to the ground. Garin opened it and peeled back the top, exposing the melted mess of gold that had once been a crown.

  “What is this?” the overlord asked, looking confused as he knelt down to touch the twisted gold. He pulled the crown out without seeming to notice the weight and then realisation dawned in his eyes. “The Crown of Kings!”

  All eyes were suddenly on the small group around the overlord. A hushed silence made Garin shift uncomfortably and he took a step back from the crown.

  “Who did this!” the overlord demanded angrily as his face coloured redder than the boiling lava in the pits. “Who destroyed the Crown of Kings?”

  “Well, it was sort of an accident,” Garin said defensively. “There was this fight with Wizard Kazar and…”

  “Wizard Kazar!” The overlord spat the name like a bad-tasting grub, seeming to assume the blame lay with the disliked wizard. For several minutes the overlord carried the crown around the cave, thinking and frowning. Finally he came back to the three travellers and faced them. “Very well, we will form a new crown for you.”

  “Thank you,” Taya said with a sigh of relief that both Garin and Drake echoed.

  The overlord waved at one of the dwarves and a huge crucible was brought to him. He placed the crown in it and the crucible was suspended over the lava pit.

  “Now we need the wizard to cast the spell…” the overlord said absently as if it were a mere formality and easily obtained.

  “Taya here is who you want,” Drake said and pushed Taya forward a little.

  Taya stumbled as she resisted and fell to the ground. The overlord looked at her as she scrambled to her feet and he looked about to laugh.

  “I said a wizard,” he repeated as if they hadn’t heard him and then he pointed to Garin. “The only wizard here is this young man, although I’m not surprised to see the girl here as well.”

  “You’re sure of that?” Drake asked, looking perplexed and unaware that it wasn’t done to question a dwarf of this one’s obvious importance.

  “I know a wizard when I see one, and I see only one here,” the overlord replied patiently and Drake shrugged and raised one eyebrow in surprise.

  Garin wasn’t sure if he should be pleased or not that the overlord took him for a wizard. He had no idea how to cast a spell on a crown or for that matter he wasn’t sure he would be able to cast one!

  “Why aren’t you surprised to see me?” Taya asked in her usual direct manner.

  “A wizard’s familiar is never far away,” the overlord said in a tone that said it was quite obvious.

  “His familiar?” Taya said, wide-eyed and going pale despite the heat of the cavern.

  “Well, I’ll be a frog!” Drake said, staring hard at Taya as if she had just sprouted wings and a beak. Then he turned to Garin. “Will ye be turning her into a bird?”

  Garin just gaped and wondered if the heat had got to him. Perhaps he was hearing things? How could Taya be his familiar? “But …”

  The overlord looked patiently at Garin. “You were paired from birth. When a master is reborn, the familiar is also chosen. She will have come from a long line of familiars.”

  “We’re fishermen,” Taya argued stubbornly.

  The overlord just shrugged and turned back to the crucible, where the twisted crown had melted to a pool of liquid gold.

  Garin dragged his eyes from Taya and wondered why the room wasn’t boiling hot from the lava but he had no time to frame a question to the overlord as the dwarf’s next request made Garin’s heart sink.

  “And of course we’ll need a drop of blood from the royal line to finish the crown.”

  oOo

  -12-

  Drake blinked, stunned, and Garin simply stared dumbfounded.

  “A what?” Garin croaked, while the overlord gazed back at them in confusion.

  “A drop of blood from the royal line, of course,” the overlord repeated. Then his expression changed from confusion, to irritation and to anger. “What is your name, wizard?”

  “Garin…”

  “Impossible,” the overlord snorted. “Garin the Great would have come prepared!”

  “I came for my master, Eyan the Elder, to give him his staff… that is what I came prepared to do.”

  If anything, the overlord’s anger seemed to increase, and with an impatient snap of his fingers, he ordered the crucible raised from the melting-pit. With sorry shakes of their heads, dwarves heaved on chains, and the great pot lifted from the bubbling lava.

  “His staff?” the overlord demanded. “You came to give Eyan his staff?”

  “Yes…” Garin began.

  “How long were you apprenticed this time?” the overlord demanded.

  “Five years.” Garin answered automatically even though the way the dwarf had worded it caused him to frown. He had heard the same question from Wizard Kazar back at the castle.

  “Five!” the overlord gasped, “And you still cannot remember?”

  “Remember what?”

  Suddenly, Taya started crying and sank to the ground in a heap. “It’s hopeless! It’s all hopeless! How are we to fetch a drop of royal blood? It’ll take
weeks to return to Kinlock on foot! How can we hope to move that boulder again? And even if we could, what then? This Garin the Great of yours can no more cast a spell on the crown than I can!”

  The overlord gazed down at the weeping girl and anger clouded his face once more.

  “Actually, you could. As his familiar you do have some magic.”

  Taya just stared at him and her crying increased. Drake swiftly reached down, and helped Taya to her feet.

  “The missy’s right though, your Overlordship.” Drake mumbled, his sad voice echoing around the chamber. “Young Garin’s not particularly great at anything. Except perhaps running. He can run, you know! And once he used a magic feather to blast some prison bars. But that’s all.”

  “A feather?” the overlord gasped, pacing furiously, and dangerously close to the lava-pit. “A magic feather? Are you all mad? The king sends you to us in the hope of restoring the crown Wizard Kazar destroyed and you’re babbling about a feather?”

  “Actually,” Drake grunted, “It wasn’t Wizard Kazar who destroyed the crown, it was…” and in spite of the sudden sharp nudge in his ribs from the young missy of Portsan, Drake finished the sentence: “…Taya.”

  “You! You destroyed the Crown of Kings?”

  Great gasps echoed around the chamber, and they could see dwarves mumbling and reaching for weapons…heavy hammers, picks, and iron bars. Instinctively, Drake reached over his shoulder and, as he drew Taya tighter to him, he pulled Felgardin from its sheath. Then he let out an enormous choking sigh, when he caught sight of the broken blade.

  “Wait,” Garin shouted. “Wizard Kazar was about to destroy her. She was only trying to defend herself.”

  Dwarves blinked, and the overlord advanced towards Garin, his eyes wide. “Then it was you who commanded the staff, to protect your familiar.”

  Drake frowned, and Taya blinked back her tears in disbelief.

  “I… maybe…” Garin mumbled, clutching the gnarled staff by the cheesecloth wrap.

  “And still you cannot remember who you are?” Taran gaped, awestruck.

  “I am Garin, apprentice to Eyan the Elder. Please,” Garin implored, “I must find my master! He can teach me the spell for the crown! He can teach me the spell for travelling, so that I can fetch a drop of royal blood!”

  At this, Taya and Drake looked suddenly hopeful, and the big warrior lowered his broken blade.

  “The melt is cooling!” one of the dwarves called, peering into the crucible.

  The overlord pointed towards the pit, and the great melting-pot was lowered once more. “The metal cannot be allowed to harden, not without a drop of blood from the royal line,” he explained. “Otherwise it becomes nothing but gold, nothing but a crown which anyone could wear.”

  “Then we’d better get a move on and find the Grand Wizard!” Drake boomed.

  A strange sadness seemed to fill the overlord’s eyes. “I do not think he can help you.”

  At this, Garin caught his breath. “Has…has something happened to my master then?”

  “Only what must happen, when a wizard returns to Renga to renew his powers. The elves here have been tending him, waiting for…waiting for you, Garin.”

  “I don’t understand,” Garin croaked.

  “Nor me!” Drake boomed. “Where is Eyan? I’m pledged to serve him, that’s why I’ve been following this twig! Or was, until King Peiter needed a new hat.”

  “Taran, would you ask Jerod to bring Eyan to us,” the overlord commanded.

  “Aye m’lord,” Taran grunted sadly, putting a heavy hammer back onto a workbench, before leaving through one of the brightly-lit tunnels. All around, dwarves put down their makeshift weapons, and Drake sadly eyed Felgardin.

  A sudden spark of hope lit his eyes and straightened his back. “Elves, you say, your Overlordship?”

  “There are but four of them, here on Mount Renga. They are the guardians.”

  “D’you think…by Cordak, d’you think they can mend Felgardin?”

  “You must ask them.”

  “Aye!” Drake beamed, “Aye! I shall! D’ye hear that, missy? Elves! Young Garin was right, there are elves in the land!”

  “Yes,” Taya whispered, staring at the same tunnel Garin’s eyes were fixed upon.

  Hearts pounded like dwarves’ hammers…

  Taya stared at the tunnel’s mouth, waiting to see the shambling old man she’d known since childhood, hoping that the aged wizard could put everything to right, enchant the crown, magically fetch a drop of royal blood…that it would all be over and she could go home, back to her family in Portsan…

  Drake stared at the tunnel, still clutching the useless remains of his family’s heritage, desperate to catch sight of an elf, any elf, as long as that elf could restore his honour and re-forge the mighty sword carried proudly by Drakes since long before anyone could remember.

  And Garin stared, his heart pounding in his ears, waiting to see his Master, Eyan, who could take back the staff, end this horrible adventure, and return them to the safe and familiar cottage in the humble village by the sea.

  Hearts pounded louder as footsteps echoed through the tunnels, and shadows began to dance on the walls. Someone was coming! Garin held his breath, clutching the staff tighter as tears of joy threatened to brim over.

  Taran emerged from the lighted tunnel first, still wearing a sad expression, his bushy white eyebrows knotted. A few paces behind Taran there was a tall and slender man, with long white-blond hair and large, sad, brown eyes that blinked almost continuously in the glare from the tunnels and the lava-pit. Drake gasped delightedly, for the man’s pale skin, large eyes, and slightly pointed ears could only mean one thing…this was Jerod, an elf.

  Garin blinked, and stared at the tunnel, waiting for Eyan to shuffle into sight. Then Taran took a few paces to one side, revealing a young boy, of perhaps three or four years, who had been walking between the dwarf and the elf. Garin recognised the boy as the human child who’d been playing with the dwarves when first they’d arrived.

  “I don’t understand…” Garin began.

  “This is Jerod, one of the four guardians,” the overlord announced.

  “Greetings, Wizard.” The elf bowed slightly, his voice sighing like a breeze.

  “Where’s Eyan the Elder?” Drake blinked.

  “This is Eyan,” the elf replied, waving a slender and delicate hand at the boy, who at first grinned, and then, seeing the shock and confusion on the strangers’ faces, suddenly turned, and buried his head in Jerod’s robes.

  “But…he’s a boy!” Garin cried, aghast.

  “I don’t understand…” Drake rumbled, echoing Garin’s shock.

  Jerod looked at them all, his large eyes becoming accustomed to the bright light and blinking less rapidly. “He is renewed, in accordance with the nature of wizards.”

  Garin at once strode forward, fear and confusion blurring his vision. He knelt before the shy youngster, and reached out a trembling hand to touch him on the shoulder. Eyan peeped out from the folds of Jerod’s robes, and at once Garin knew it to be true. There, deep in the young boy’s shining eyes, he could see for himself that this was indeed his old master, though old no longer.

  “Eyan…” Garin croaked, “Master, I’ve brought you your staff, as you asked.”

  At first the boy giggled, and buried his face again, and then he peered out, curious. Garin eased the staff forward, offering it to the child. Eyan blinked, and then smiled, and then reached out his tiny hand to grip the elf-tree staff.

  Suddenly, the smile on the boy’s face vanished, his eyes screwed shut, and he let out a terrible wailing cry, letting go of the staff as though it were red hot. Or icy cold. The child stood there, holding out his frozen hand and crying like the youngster he was.

  “It is no use,” the Overlord announced. “The staff is no longer Eyan’s. It is yours, Garin.”

  “Come, Eyan,” Jerod said softly, kneeling and rubbing the life back into the child’s numbed
fingers before picking him up. “I do not understand why Eyan would choose to return to Renga, when clearly his apprentice is not ready or not able to assume his responsibilities. Surely he taught you everything before he left?”

  Garin stood, and backed away, clutching the staff hopelessly by the cloth wrap. “I can’t remember…”

  “You are not ready to take Eyan as an apprentice,” Jerod announced.

  “He’s not ready for anything at all,” Taya mumbled. “What now, Garin the Great? Now you’ve found your master, what are we to do?”

  “Aye,” Drake agreed, stepping closer to Taya. “You’re stuck with that useless twig, I’m stuck with a broken sword, and we’re all stuck with worthless shiny metal bubbling in a pot!”

  “I…I don’t know what to do!” Garin protested, his mind reeling. It was all too impossible! Eyan! Grand Master Eyan of Elvenglade, his master these five years past, now nothing more than an unknowing, innocent child!

  “We’re doomed,” Taya muttered, her head dropping. “There’s no way we can get back to Kinlock, and persuade the king to return with us here to make the crown. It’s hopeless. As soon as he finds out we’ve failed, King Peiter will recall the healer from Portsan, and the villagers, and my grandfather, will be left without aid of any kind.”

  “Aye, if he doesn’t sling us all back in that dungeon!” Drake boomed. Then he seemed to remember Jerod, and that he was an elf… “Uhm, your elfship, would it be possible…?” and he held out the broken Felgardin and the elf stepped closer to look.

  “We can hold the crown in the crucible no more than one full day,” the overlord announced, impatiently. “Beyond that, it cannot be remade as Eyan intended. It will be nothing more than a simple crown.”

  Garin backed away from them all, his mind whirling. Their words seemed to bore into him, and he felt his anger rising. Taya seemed interested only in the healer she had asked to be sent to Portsan. Drake seemed interested only in fixing his broken sword. The dwarf overlord was fuming over a mess of liquid gold in the melting-pot. No-one seemed to care that Garin was alone now in the world, alone and clutching the useless elf-tree staff that everyone seemed to think was his. Eyan, his master, was master no more. The child Eyan would remember nothing of wizardry for years to come, and perhaps not at all unless he was apprenticed to another wizard. A real wizard.