Gifts of Vorallon: 01 - The Final Warden

by Thomas Cardin

  Taggi smiled down at the attentive child. “If you are alone or there is no one to bind the demon, you must use your gift with all your will. In this you must practice, lad, as your brothers have done with theirs. Best that you not be alone until you have mastered ritual or gift.”

  The memory brought him the words of the Ritual of Binding and the Ritual of Banishment, both were in song-like words of divine magic, and the former was almost a dozen stanzas long. Any forgotten or misspoken word would prevent the divine spirit from flowing and the spell would fail. There was no memory of the gift Taggi had urged the child Lorace to practice.

  Throughout this brief flood of memory, Thryk had continued his discourse on godstone and the Ritual of the Forge, where it was the dwarven Forgemaster’s task to form the godstone into the weapon of its destiny.

  “It is our closeness to the spirit of Vorallon that has given my people the task of forging godstone as He wills it. Are you listening, bearer?” Thryk frowned at Lorace’s distant gaze.

  Lorace nodded, somewhat stunned. “Forgive me. I am trying to understand what you say, but a memory just returned to me.”

  “Wonderful, Lorace!” Tornin gave Lorace’s shoulder a delighted squeeze. “Do you remember how you found the godstone?”

  “Nothing that relevant, I am afraid. It was from my early childhood. I remembered a dwarven teacher. He was instructing me in ritual spells and he referred to me having brothers.”

  “Great days!” Tornin crowed. “We will find your brothers and they will help you remember more.”

  Lorace shook his head. My brothers are gone. “They are missing. I cannot explain it, but they are just gone.”

  Thryk gave a snort of impatience, “Return here tomorrow with supplies for the journey up the Silarne. I must prepare for my departure. Remember, let none touch the godstone or they too will be bound to your destiny, and the destiny of godstone blessed heroes can be brief.”

  With those ominous words the dwarf ushered them out of the smithy. Tornin and Lorace exited into the fully fallen night while the dwarf went about his forge, pulling heating metal out of the coals and banking back the fire.

  “The evening is escaping us, and I have yet to get you fed,” Tornin said. “You must be hungry.”

  “Starving, my friend,” Lorace slapped his free hand to his hollow belly. “I have eaten nothing today, but I have nothing to pay for a meal.”

  “There is no want here,” Tornin said with another firm clasp of his shoulder. “Not because you are a hero of the gods, but because you are good and pure. It is to all pilgrims that aid is given. There are three empty homes for each one that is occupied. We harvest the fields and the sea to provide for everyone’s needs. I will take you to where I live, you will be fed well.”

  “I do not wish to burden your family.”

  Tornin laughed easily. “Everyone in Halversome is my family, and has been since I was a foundling. I live in the finest inn of Halversome, well, the only inn. It would be empty but for a few of us single guardsmen who do not wish to share in the snores of our fellows in the barracks houses.”

  Their path led through empty streets, now that it was full night, toward the edge of town that overlooked the sea. Lorace could hear the thunder of the falls where the flowing water dropped into the sea. They stopped before a large square building where a hanging sign held a rearing dragon of beaten copper, with a patina of green verdigris.

  “Welcome to the Green Dragon,” Tornin proclaimed as he held the heavy wooden door open for Lorace. The heady smell of food and fragrant ale wafted over him like a wave, at no time during the day was Lorace more hungry than the moment those aromas fell upon him. He staggered past the threshold and into the inn’s dimly lit main room. There were many colorful townsfolk and guardsmen already within, sharing their tales of the day and enjoying a social meal. There was no sign of foreigners save for Lorace himself.

  Tornin stepped forth and introduced Lorace to the whole room. “This is Lorace, a new pilgrim to Halversome.”

  Everyone took this sudden interruption in stride and welcomed Lorace with a cheer and raised mugs, congratulating him on his successful pilgrimage.

  When the innkeeper, a black haired and thickly mustached man of about Lorace’s size, came forth to welcome them, Tornin introduced him as his friend, Ehddan.

  “You have found a true friend in Tornin, young pilgrim,” Ehddan said with a broad smile that wriggled his mustache as he brought them each a tankard of ale. “It appears that your garb did not survive the journey with you, I have some old clothes that may fit you.”

  “Best you feed him and see how much he fills out before you pawn off your old fishmonger clothes,” Tornin said with a laugh.

  “Thank you,” Lorace said to the generous and jovial innkeeper before the man turned back toward his kitchen.

  Lorace sighed to be off his feet for the first time since climbing to the cliff top that same distant morning. He took a drink of the strong ale, and his eyes lit up at its soothing flavor, sweet from the malt with a hint of spicy bitterness.

  Tornin leaned across the table to tap his tankard to Lorace’s. “It is a pleasure to know a real hero. I would like to help you unravel your mystery if I may.”

  “I will accept all the help I can get. May I call you my friend, and thank you once more for your rescue and your guidance here?”

  “I shall call you friend as well, Lorace,” Tornin said with a salute of his tankard to his lips.

  “Tornin, is everyone who comes to Halversome a pilgrim? I feel like I have been made a very special guest of your city.”

  “No, there were merchants that came by ship to buy and trade for our artistry with their gold and wares. None have come for several moons though; it has been of some concern to Guardian Oen and Captain Falraan. We are not sorely affected by the loss, but it does not speak well of affairs in the rest of the world.”

  Lorace recalled the townsfolk’s eager questions for news from afar. Indeed, more than just the two who Tornin mentioned were concerned. He could not hazard a guess at what happened in the world beyond the path he had trod today. “Who is Captain Falraan? Is he your commanding officer?”

  “Ahem, yes, well, Captain Falraan is a she, but otherwise you are correct.”

  Several guardsmen at a nearby table winked to one another like merry conspirators as they overheard Tornin’s stammered comment. Lorace noted this attention with a smile. Indeed, except for Hurn, all the other guardsmen they have passed on the street or met at the gate had been quite deferential to Tornin. All had great respect for the tall blonde guardsman.

  Changing the subject clumsily, Tornin told him more about the inn where they were currently relaxing. “They named this the Green Dragon because the grand waterfall causes it to shake and thunder here like a dragon.”

  Lorace held still for a moment, and indeed he could hear the rumble of the falls and feel a slight vibration in the stone beneath his feet. Ehddan was more successful at changing the subject of their conversation by bringing forth a platter of food, a large portion of a roast turkey accompanied by a preserve of berries and two huge steaming-hot potatoes with a slab of salted butter already melting into them. They ate with a passion, Lorace’s body gratefully accepting the food as a restorative for more than a day of privation.

  “Can you tell me anything about dragons?” Lorace asked after he had consumed all the turkey he could hold. He was not sure what made him ask this, something about the serpentine form upon the inn’s sign tickled at his memory.

  “Not really, just what everyone knows,” Tornin answered between steady bites of their feast-like dinner. “They are great flying, fire breathing beasts, or at least they were. I do not think anyone has seen one in hundreds of years, if they ever were real. Something deep in the core of me would love to do battle with one.”

  “I think they are real,” Lorace said after a moment of brow furrowing thought, he could almost picture one within his imagination, but it was hi
dden somehow, all he saw was the sign that hung above the door of the inn. “I do not know how I know, it is just a feeling I have.”

  After they had eaten, Tornin took Lorace back out to the night shrouded streets, up to and into the great south tower. He led Lorace up the stair that spiraled around its inner circumference. They paused at a landing that opened onto the wall’s battlements and a well-lit chamber leading to what Lorace assumed must be a guardroom. With an indecisive toss of his head, Tornin continued upward into the upper half of the tower.

  The top of the stairs opened onto the windswept tower battlements where Tornin nodded to a thickly cloaked guardsman on watch. The height was so far above the warm paving stones below that the winter’s cold was fully present. The view of Halversome was complete from the tower’s summit, but much of it was now shrouded in darkness broken only by a few braziers and torches illuminating a few of its features. The brightest light was coming from the plaza where two large braziers illuminated the open portal to the Temple of Aran.

  “Tornin? Who is Aran? What sort of god is he?” Lorace asked as he looked down upon the open temple.

  “He is the Lord of Light, the Lord of Waters,” Tornin answered. “Most everyone in Halversome worships him, if not him then one of the more benevolent Old Gods. He guides us, calming the fearful and warming our hearts. When you feel ready, you should seek him out. I know you are fearful because of your missing memory and your scars. You fear your past. Now with what Thryk has told you, you may fear your future as well. Lord Aran will guide you, this I am sure of.”

  Lorace nodded. “When I am ready then.”

  He forced down the fears that Tornin had read upon him and turned toward the sea. Far below there was a small walled harbor on the south side of the waterfall. A long narrow dock stretched out from the base of the cliff with several small fishing boats moored along its length. The enclosing wall separated the turbulent water of the waterfall from the dock, and functioned as breakwater and defense for the small harbor.

  “How does anyone get down to the docks?” Lorace asked, shifting the subject away from gods and purity. “It seems inaccessible from here.”

  “There is a lift beside the waterfall that the dwarves devised, it is powered by the falling water and can carry large loads of cargo up and down with ease, though it clanks something awful with its chains and gears. There is also a narrow stairway cut into the cliff, but it is seldom used by any but the most sure footed.”

  They paused in silence upon the crenelated tower battlements while Lorace looked down upon the city. When the silence became long and the cold was starting to bite, Lorace turned back toward Tornin. The tall young man was fidgeting with his sword belt. He had taken him up here after lingering for a long while over a meal, holding off on doing or saying something.

  Lorace narrowed his eyes. “Is something wrong, Tornin?” he asked. “Something you are not telling me?”

  The guardsman turned and smiled at him. “When you go with Thryk tomorrow to the city of the dwarves, I would like to accompany you. If I may?”

  “Of course you may,” he said, relaxing within his borrowed cloak. “Is that all that was bothering you? I thought it was something serious.”

  “Well, it may be. I will have to ask the Captain for leave to do so.”

  Lorace frowned for a moment at the honest faced guardsman, wondering if perhaps the Captain was in league with Hurn in some way that was threatening to Tornin.

  “Do you think she will forbid you?”

  Tornin contemplated his answer for a moment before speaking, casting more than one furtive glance toward the guardsman who stood watch across the tower top from them. “She is just different with me, I do not understand her. I mean, I follow her orders and I do my duty, but she seems to pick me out among the other guards as an example or something. I do not know what she will say.”

  “Well, let us go talk to her while it is still reasonably early,” Lorace said with a reassuring smile. “You can introduce me, and when she sees the godstone, she can hardly deny me an official escort. Is that not so?”

  Tornin was not as uncomplicated of a man as Lorace had first believed, he thought about things sincerely and deeply. He weighed the truth of a decision before acting upon it. His honesty in those moments of contemplation was an intense thing which Lorace found comforting against his own uncertainties. Tornin’s very presence had a calming, assuring effect to which Lorace was growing more and more attached.

  At last Tornin nodded with a grin. “You are right, friend Lorace. Let us go, her rooms are just down stairs in this very tower.”

  Back down the circling tower stair they went, to step off at the landing of the wall’s battlements. Tornin turned them to the side chamber which Lorace had assumed was a guardroom. This opened onto a closed doorway where a homely guardsman stood at ease.

  “Hello Nordoc,” Tornin greeted the large nosed man. “I need to speak with Captain Falraan, if I may.”

  The guardsman smiled a gap-toothed grin at Tornin and nodded a welcome to Lorace. “I will announce you, Tornin; she is always willing to see you.”

  Lorace smiled at the guardsman’s choice of words, seeing in them another sign of the respect everyone he had met had for Tornin.

  Nordoc opened the door enough to stick his head within and spoke to someone, but Lorace could not hear the voice that replied. “Ma’am? Tornin is here to see you...No; he brings the new pilgrim with him...Yes Ma’am.”

  Lorace was mildly surprised to find that word of him had reached throughout the city. Nordoc opened the door wide on a chamber lit by dozens of candles and beckoned them to enter. Lorace stepped in Tornin’s wake and caught a presumptive, but merry smirk on Nordoc’s face before he shut the door.

  “Greetings Corporal Tornin,” said a woman’s strong voice.

  Lorace slid from behind Tornin’s broad back to see Captain Falraan and everything fell into place when he saw how this lovely young woman looked upon Tornin. Her large blue eyes sparkled at the handsome guardsman with subdued passion for an instant before they turned toward Lorace. She was strikingly beautiful, as tall as Lorace and crowned with a mass of red hair that struggled to assert its freedom from the thick braid that hung down her back. Her red lips straightened themselves to a more officious neutral position as she looked Lorace up and down with a critical eye that could only belong to a leader of men. She wore the same blue surcoat with white trim over a well-fitting green shirt and a white, floor length skirt.

  “Greetings Captain Falraan, may I present to you our new pilgrim, Lorace?” Tornin punctuated this with a firm clasp on Lorace’s shoulder, attempting to steer him toward Falraan. “Lorace, this is Captain Falraan, the commander of the guardsmen of Halversome.”

  “It is a pleasure to meet you, Lorace,” she said, smiling and extending a hand. Her chamber was simple and austere, but for a large overstuffed chair facing a fireplace where a small pile of coals glowed red. Beyond was a door that led further into her chambers.

  Lorace took her hand and bowed his head. “It is my pleasure, my Lady. Your man, Tornin, saved my life today from three savage wolves that beset me before I reached Halversome’s gate. I owe him and this city a great debt for my rescue and succor.”

  Lorace was not sure where he was pulling these words of praise from, they sounded like words a knight would say upon finding himself in a similar state. There was something rattling around from his childhood, but nothing that came to his conscious mind as a distinct memory.

  “If there is something of an adventure on the wind, there you will find Tornin,” Falraan said with a smile. “He is the champion of this year’s guardsman’s tourney, and I expect even greater things from him.”

  Lorace raised his eyebrows at mention of the guardsman’s tourney as Tornin turned his flushed face away. “He did not share that with me about himself. He will make an exceedingly qualified escort for me tomorrow when I journey to Vlaske K’Brak.”

  Captain Falraan’s ey
es widened. “The dwarven home?” she asked. “You have been invited there I presume?”

  He held up the godstone sphere, which had not left his grip, even while he ate. “I am to be honored with the Ritual of the Forge.”

  Falraan cast a brief accusing look at Tornin before her face returned to a tight-lipped neutral smile. “I should have been notified immediately that we had the presence of someone of such note in our city. It is an even greater pleasure that we honor you with a suitable escort up the Silarne. If it is your desire that that escort be Tornin, I gladly offer his services to you.”

  She leveled her comprehending gaze on Tornin. “As I am sure it is his wish as well. When do you leave?”

  “Lieutenant Hurn has put me on dawn watch at the Pilgrim’s Gate, so we will not depart until late morning,” Tornin informed her.

  “That is not your normal shift. I will see that someone else stands for you so that you may leave sooner if you wish.”

  Lorace held up a hand to forestall such a measure. “A late morning departure should be just fine, I think. Thryk bid me gather some supplies for the journey.”

  “Very well,” Captain Falraan said with a nod. “If I do not see you before you depart I wish you good travel and an honorable showing at the Ritual of the Forge. If my duties permitted me, I would take to the road with you as well. It is a momentous event.”

  The Captain bid them good evening and they descended from the tower to make their way back toward the Green Dragon Inn.

  “So, she treats you differently than the other guardsmen?” Lorace questioned Tornin once they were picking their way through the darkened streets.

  “Yes. I cannot explain it. She seems to be quite proud of my performance in the guardsman’s tourney and I suppose that causes her to expect more from me.”

  “Tornin, she is thrilled at your presence, do you not see that?”

  “That is absurd, Lorace,” Tornin halted in his tracks to address him. “She is my Captain. She is the closest thing to nobility this city has, her father is the Truthseeker, brother to Guardian Oen, the High Priest of Aran. I have nothing to offer such as her beside the sure performance of my duties.”