Taerak's Void

by M. R. Mathias

  She waved him away, but added, "Leave the book. Find Pogl and tell him to cancel all my engagements for the next two days."

  "As you wish, Master Bee," Martarin said, clearly excited at the prospect of being included in such secretive and important work.

  Master Martarin skipped out of the room like a happy child and closed the door behind him.

  "Lord Braxton?" Braxton blurted out half-laughing, half-angry, but the anger was only superficial. Master Bee had given the scholar a way to study the strange language of the book without revealing the bulk of its content.

  Very clever.

  "All it takes to be a lord is to own land in the kingdom." She wrote something on a piece of paper and folded it up for him. "Do you have a horse?" she asked.

  "Yes, he is stabled at the inn where I am staying."

  "Well, Lord Braxton, there is no sense wasting coins on a room." She walked over demurely and placed the folded paper in his hand. "Bring your things and your horse and present this to the stable master at the eastern most hedgegate surrounding the hall. He will direct you back to here." She ran her finger lightly through his hair. "I will only be able to help you for a couple of days. We have a long night of map study ahead of us m'lord, you best not waste your time."

  Chapter Eight

  When Braxton finally escaped Master Bee and the Hall of Scholars, he'd only learned a few more things about the maps and the book. In other areas, he was now quite knowledgeable. Master Bee had been demanding, to say the least, and as he bounced limply in Prism's saddle on his way down the South Road toward Antol, he found his body felt like the crushed shell of a hulled peanut.

  His destination was ultimately Jolin. He wanted to speak with the elves. He hadn't told Master Beatrice or anyone else this, and since Master Bee had directed him to Halden, to a place called the Sorcerious, to meet with an Old One named Debain, there was no need to reveal his secret. Halden was on the coast, and if he wanted to go to Jolin, he would have to take a ship.

  Long ago, he'd learned from Master Finn that an Old One was a wizard. Not a magician like the one who'd entertained him back at the Inn. There were very few wizards left in Narvoza. Most of the finer points of their art were supposedly lost. None of them were nearly as powerful as the legendary sorcerers of the Old World were supposed to have been. According to Master Finn's lessons, the few Old Ones still practicing had to garner a vast amount of knowledge, even in the highly diluted state, just to cast minor spells, much less a spell of longevity. But only after one had cast the spell of longevity upon themselves, a spell that allowed them to live up to thrice as long as a normal human, were they known as an Old One.

  What Braxton had learned at the Hall of Scholars that made him want to go to Jolin instead of the Sorcerious was found in a small journal entry, less than a page. Master Martarin had dug it out of the archives because it referred to a little-known binding process that he thought was similar to that used on the book Braxton possessed.

  The entry read:

  An odd white-haired man came to me yesterday. After he was gone, I realized he wasn’t one of us, so I told Parchman, and he made an honest effort to find him. Parchman insists I was drunk, but I was as sober as a stone. What I remember most about the stranger was that he never actually spoke to me. I somehow knew, though, that he wanted dried meat rations and watered wine, enough to last him half a season. At one point, I noticed his leather journal. It was bound together with wire and resin and was like no other text I've ever seen before. In poor Parchman's defense, my description of him was rather vague. The memory, while vivid at the time, was almost impossible to recall just a day after he'd come. One of the elven maidens said I had seen a cloud warrior or some nonsense. I do remember that his hair was pure white, and he was very tall, but I've already written down that part.

  It wasn’t much to go on, but since the book he'd found was bound with wire and resin, Braxton intended to ask the elves about it, more specifically, what a cloud warrior might be.

  After a full day of comparing maps, Master Bee made the valid point that the sea level had risen quite a bit over the two hundred or so years since the seekers had made their maps. Back then, Jolin wasn’t really even an island, but the tip of a long peninsula. She said the maps that showed the older view were in Halden, and that was why she'd sent Braxton there. The letter Braxton carried from her to Debain requested the Old One's help in giving Braxton access to the old maps, as well as translating his book. Master Martarin hadn't been able to do it. The older maps were locked away in the Sorcerious. It was a serious sounding place, and Braxton felt too ignorant around Master Martarin and Master Beatrice to ask what it was about.

  Master Bee had commissioned a party of men to go retrieve the skeleton from the watery cavern for study. Braxton told her to send them to Captain Murdle at the Upperton outpost. He or Dendle could take them directly to it.

  Braxton smiled at the thought of Davvy telling his side of the story to some group of scholarly explorers. They would probably want to see the piece of the creature Master Finn had put into a pickle jar and study the wounds Davvy had taken.

  Braxton was so exhausted, and caught up in his thoughts, he almost didn’t notice the two shifty-eyed men following him out the Southern Gate of the outer wall. All the way through the outskirts of Camberly they stayed a good way behind him but kept pace with Prism's steady trot. Braxton dismissed them as travelers on the same route, but didn't forget they were there.

  As the day wore on, Braxton found the returned presence of the Vasting River off to his left-hand side. It was a welcome sight and oddly comforting to know the water he could see flowing gently past had not long ago been rolling past his family and friends in Uppervale. He decided the river was like a continually flowing piece of home, and he chose to make camp along its familiar shore instead of under one of the copses of trees that occasionally lined the right-hand side of the road.

  Hertzle and Bart were thieves, highway robbers and sometimes burglars, though they had been known to take on other unsavory jobs, if the money was right. They had been planning on taking the young bumpkin they followed at the Dragon's Claw Inn, but he mysteriously disappeared for a few days. It was a stroke of luck that Bart noticed the haggard-looking farm boy as he passed out of the archway of the cities inner wall. Hertzle almost called off the endeavor, thinking that their mark had drank away all his coins or was possibly tricked out of them by a crafty whore. The poor sap looked to have endured something quite taxing, but Hertzle's keen eye caught sight of the silver that remained in the boy’s pouch when he'd stopped by the outer gate to buy a handful of apples that were probably for his healthy-looking horse. Now the plan was to be patient. Tonight, they would still be too close to Camberly. There was too much road traffic and too many guard patrols to take the risk.

  Hertzle had no doubt that descriptions of he and Bart had been circulated. They had successfully robbed several people and a small caravan on the southern road just this side of Antole. Of course, they had changed their appearance by cropping their hair and changing their shave, but with the amount of loot they'd stolen, the guards would have been warned to look for such changes in appearance.

  One more days travel and the bumpkin would be forced to camp in the more wooded section of the South Road's passage. There, they could make their move and have a better chance of avoiding witnesses and interference.

  "I could just ride up and smash him," Bart offered eagerly. "No one is looking. No one is even around."

  Bart was large and stupid and very good at hurting people. Hertzle thought Bart's best trait was that he felt no remorse and would act without hesitation. His problem was he was always in a hurry.

  "Somebody would find his body by morning, and his horse is unique enough that it would be an issue," Hertzle said in a way that would remind Bart why he did all the thinking. "If we wait until tomorrow night, we can drag his body into the woods, ride the horse to Antole, and sell it and not have to hide out for a mon
th. Besides, you like Antole."

  "Alright, Hertz," Bart conceded. "Doesn’t Gertry live in Antole?"

  "She does, Bart. That she does." Hertzle remembered the name of his friend's favorite whore. "If you could wait until it's safe to take the boy, we can pay her a visit. If you rush it and get excited, we will have to go back to Sonly again, to hide out."

  "I don’t like Sonly.” Bart sneered. "It stinks like rotting fish."

  So does Gertry, Hertzle thought but kept the words from rolling off his tongue.

  Braxton found a spot by the river as far from the road as he could manage. In front of him, to the south, a small wagon train made camp near the road. Back toward Camberly, the two riders who had followed him milled around, looking for a place to camp themselves. He thought he might be safer if he rode to the wagon train's camp where he would surely be welcome, but he decided that after being in the crowded city and the center of Master Bee's aggressive attention, the solitude of a night alone under the stars, by the river he loved so much, would be better. After all, he was in shouting distance of the wagon train.

  He hobbled Prism and gave him an apple. The horse accepted it with a grateful nod of his head. No fire was necessary for it was warm and the night sky was clear. He laid out his bedroll and stared at the stars.

  He had just drifted off when a heavy grunting sound accompanied by a large splash brought him to full attention. Prism pranced in place and whinnied his disapproval. Another splash sounded, this one was accompanied with a high-pitched growl. Braxton looked toward the sound. Both moons were in the sky, and it was bright enough to make out the source of the noise. When he did, Braxton's heart stopped cold from fear. He held his breath in awe, for clumsily pulling itself out of the river, not twenty paces away, was what appeared to be a small dragon.

  Braxton had never seen a dragon before, but he'd looked at several paintings of them just a few days ago. The great wyrms were rarely seen but there were dragons living in the teeth, and more and more sightings were reported each year. Braxton guessed that the young dragon, from head to tail, was no more than twice his own height. The poor creature looked to have taken a tumble by accidentally flying too low or misjudging a grab for a river fish.

  Braxton watched on in total amazement. Prism pranced and huffed in place and rolled his eyes crazily, but the amazing creature paid them no heed.

  Once it was out of the water, it shook its head slowly as if clearing away cobwebs. It then stretched out each wing gingerly. It took a few steps and seemed to be favoring an injured foreleg. Then it flapped its wings, took a couple of limping steps, then leapt into flight.

  From high overhead, a massive roar echoed through the night. When the young wyrm was fully in the air, it answered what had to be its mother's call, and Braxton was left with his jaw in his lap and eyes as big as saucers until long after Prism finally settled down.

  Even though Braxton's body and mind were exhausted, sleep was a long time coming. His body was filled with a static buzz that seemed to course through his veins. When slumber finally found him, he dreamt of riding on the back of a soaring wyrm as the mountains, and then the oceans, passed by below.

  He woke to Prism's whinny, feeling well-rested and alive. What a wondrous thing, he thought. He wished he could run and tell Davvy about it. For a moment, he missed his friend and the comradery they shared, but not even that could lessen the sheer joy he felt.

  It was a beautiful, sunny morning. He'd seen a real dragon.

  I am living the dream, he told himself.

  I am living the dream.

  Chapter Nine

  Niether Hertzle or Bart saw the young hatchling splash down into the river, nor did they see it shake off the spill and fly back up into the darkness, but both of them clearly heard the thunderous roar.

  The sound had frightened Bart so badly that he'd stayed awake the entire night with his sword drawn, expecting every other instant for some beast to come charging into their camp and eat him alive.

  Hertzle was also disturbed by the noise, but he stopped worrying about being attacked when he saw the horses calm. He did, however, stay awake most of the night, trying to stop conjuring images of what might make such a sound.

  They both saw the bumpkin climb onto his horse early in the morning and resume his southward trek. Hurriedly, they broke camp, and like the day before, they stayed as far back as they could, while still being able to keep an eye on their mark.

  "What do you think it was?" Bart asked as they trotted down the road in the warm, morning sun.

  "I'm not sure, Bart.” Hertzle pondered the idea. "But it sure was big."

  Braxton rode past the wagon train encampment as they were just getting ready to resume travel. After that, there wasn't anyone else on the road for a while. He came upon a stopped wagon train later in the afternoon. They looked to be repairing a busted wheel, and since it looked like the repairs would take a while, the rest of the people in the group made camp.

  It was too early for him to stop, Braxton decided, so he continued for a long while, hoping the thicker forest on either side of the road would break up or thin out. As darkness crept up on him, he realized he would have no such luck. He made his camp on the edge of the narrow road and wondered if he should have stopped back where the wagon was broken down because where he was seemed about as creepy as any place he'd ever been.

  Instead of hobbling Prism, he tied his reins to a tree with enough slack so that the horse could move around a little bit. He wasn’t sure if there were wolves in this part of Narvoza, but if there were, he was sure that this is where they would be.

  He laid out his bedroll and placed his bow and some arrows on one side of it, and his sword on the other. He then made a fire and ate a few pieces of dried beef and a hard biscuit. He drank water, even though he had some fancy wine he had gotten from the Hall of Scholars. He had no intentions of sleeping this night, and the wine would dull his senses. Besides that, he couldn’t see the moon through the trees.

  For a long time, everything was eerily quiet, but slowly, as if they also were wary of this foreboding place, the cicadas and crickets began to make some noise.

  Braxton had just relaxed a little bit and chided himself for being so foolish when an owl swooped by and let out a startling hoot.

  Braxton nearly jumped out of his skin, and his heart felt like a trapped sparrow, fluttering around inside his ribcage. This time it took quite a bit longer for him to settle down, but as the night wore on he did so. Not long before dawn, he fell asleep.

  "No way, Hertz," Bart pleaded. "Not in this dark. What if that thing is still around?"

  "You sound like a school girl," Hertzle said in disgust. The night was perfect for murder, and the road was exceptionally clear of travelers, save for the broken wagon they'd passed. But that was far enough back that even if the bumpkin started screaming, they wouldn't be able to hear him. The drastic change from merciless killer to babe on the tit that Bart occasionally went through was amazing to him.

  The roar had spooked his partner badly. The damage was done. All the coaxing in the world wouldn't get Bart out in the blackness.

  Hertzle was sure he could hold out until just before dawn. If Bart was still too afraid, then he would go and handle it himself. After all, how much trouble could one farm boy be?

  Not long before the sun came up, Hertzle woke Bart, and they led their horses ahead to where they'd watch the boy's fire slowly die out. Bart wouldn’t have come, except that he didn't want to be left behind alone. Hertzle cursed himself for not thinking about that tactful approach the night before. If he had, he was sure they would be long gone, by now, and sleeping soundly somewhere down the road.

  As they crept closer to the bumpkin's camp, they counted themselves lucky. The embers from the boy's fire were stark in the pre-dawn darkness, like a beacon calling out to them. They tied off their horses a good way from the camp and walked the rest of the way as quietly as they could manage.

  Bart was clearly s
cared witless, which wasn’t all that hard to do. He had his sword drawn and seemed to be prepared to fight the beast they'd heard, not a boy with a fat purse. Hertzle was a little more focused. He couldn’t believe how easy this would be.

  "Bart," Hertzle whispered. "Where are you?"

  "Here," Bart said, far too loudly for Hertzle's comfort.

  "Hush," Hertzle hissed. He continued in a whisper, "Go kill the boy and get his pack, I will find his horse. Then we can throw some wood on the fire and count our money."

  Bart grunted agreement and moved cautiously toward the boy’s sleeping body.

  Hertzle had no desire to find the horse. He only said it because he had no taste for killing in cold blood. He had no problem taking a life in a fight, but this part was why he kept Bart around. He was just going to sit back and keep an eye out for anything too—

  A blast of white filled his vision, and Hertzle felt himself falling helplessly into the darkness.

  Bart might have heard the impact of steel on flesh and bone if Prism hadn't snorted just then, right beside his head. Had he not been so scared by the sound, he might have wounded the horse with a wild defensive move, for he was sure the beast was right beside him. As it turned out, he had his sword poised over his head ready to kill the boy, and that cost him.

  Braxton woke just in time to see the startled man who was about to kill him get kicked violently in his wide-eyed face when Prism reared up and thrust his back hooves out.

  Horrified, Braxton rolled to his feet and went into a crouch in the darkness behind his horse.