The Place We Do Not Go: A Wanderer's Tale Companion Story (The Companion Stories Book 1)

by Foote, Rex

  “Now, who has stumbled into my home?”

  Vulmer turned to see a male Elreni standing farther down the street he had been following. Vulmer quickly scrambled down to him.

  “I got lost down here, in these tunnels. I found a girl, another of our people. I was taking her to…”

  He trailed off. Where had he been taking the girl? He couldn’t seem to recall.

  “…I was taking her out of this place, and then we walked into this town,” he finished. Now closer to the man, he studied him. The Elreni was tall, about a foot more than Vulmer, with close-cut hair, and wearing the simple grey robes often favored by Human priests. His brown skin had an odd, pale hue to it, and his eyes held the color of deep amber. None of this helped put Vulmer at ease; the Elreni seemed about as wrong as the rest of this place.

  “Our people,” the other Elreni murmured, then louder he asked, “But how can you be sure that we are of the same…people? After all, it is so dark down here, and details that would otherwise reveal differences between two travelers are lost.”

  If he had been having this meeting anywhere else, at any other time, Vulmer may have dismissed the remark as idle talk. But in this place, and talking to this person, it practically screamed a warning at him. He took a step back as the other said, “I wonder what errant nudge of bad luck led you here, to me. It’s not every day an Elreni Feyweaver comes to me. Usually, it requires a lot more effort to bring you here.” The stranger smiled, an expression utterly devoid of what such a gesture usually held. “It must just be my good luck.”

  Then he attacked, but Vulmer was prepared. As the Elreni’s spell shot towards him, Vulmer automatically Drew, Shaped, and raised a shield. The sound of magic detonating against magic shook the cavern, and the flash illuminated the surrounding area. Perhaps expecting Vulmer to be blinded, the Elreni gestured, and two large pale forms leaped from the nearby buildings to close on Vulmer. Maybe if he had been a less skilled Feyweaver, he would have been taken there and then. Perhaps even if he had been as skilled as he was but lacked the Okryd Tree’s gift, he still would have fallen. That gift shielded his vision from the flash, and so he saw with clarity as he was flanked. He cast two spells in quick succession; one sent a fist of raw energy speeding towards his attacker, the other sent two much more powerful bolts to either side. At once, he felt the drain upon his body, and though he was not spent, he was hardly in good shape for a mage duel. Before him, the Elreni was taken by surprise, and was lifted from his feet and thrown down the street. To either side of him, Vulmer saw his spell connect with the massive, pale forms, and heard the satisfying sounds of bone and flesh breaking as both were thrown backward, their forward momentum halted and then reversed by the force of his spell. Staggering slightly, Vulmer started to walk towards the other Elreni. As he moved, he tilted his head to regard one of the pale things, a brutish, four-limbed monster with no eyes and a slit nose.

  So, these are the feared Denizens of the Skittering Dark, Vulmer thought to himself, pleased that he no longer spoke his thoughts aloud. It seemed battle settled his mind. He could see now why others feared to come down here. If such beasts dwelled here, then the average Human, Elreni, Sarven and Ohruin would have to think twice before braving this place.

  Before him, some ways off, his opponent staggered to his feet, coughing. Where Vulmer’s spell had hit, the cloth of his robes was dark with blood.

  “I have an offer,” Vulmer called to him. “Let me find the girl, and then let us leave this place, and no more harm will come to you.”

  At this, much to his surprise, the Elreni began to laugh. It was a rasping sound, disrupted by coughing. Clearly Vulmer’s spell had broken quite a few bones, maybe even punctured a lung.

  “You think,” the Elreni said, voice rough, “that I am already defeated?”

  “I am clearly the more skilled mage. Let the girl and I go, and no more harm will come to you,” Vulmer replied.

  Straightening, his opponent looked him dead in the eye.

  “Yes, you are the better mage. Which is precisely why I won’t let you go.”

  Vulmer sighed. “Very well.”

  He was about to Shape the spell that would end the fool’s life when his mind was flooded with vivid, painfully clear images from his nightmare. With a cry, Vulmer fell to his knees, clutching at his head. As he knelt there, trying to block out the images, he heard the Elreni’s voice cut into his mind.

  “This is the Skittering Dark, and while you walked it, it slowly broke you.”

  Vulmer knew his foe stood over him now, but the memories that filled his mind paralyzed with him their intensity. He could feel the grubs as they wrapped around his head and shoulders, so strong was the memory.

  “The Elreni believe this place is nothing more than stone, rock, and the space carved from it. But they are wrong. The Dark has a will of its own, a will made from its many denizens, all working towards the same goal.”

  Chains. Chains. Chains. Something in what the stranger had said sent Vulmer’s mind on a loop, and slowly the images from his nightmare gave way to chains, and the small part of his mind that was still under his control hatched a plan.

  “Imprisoned down here for eons, this will permeates the very rock itself. And it has need of you, Feyweaver—just not your sanity.”

  The ground shook behind him, signifying that more of those pale brutes loomed over him. But Vulmer didn’t care, for the chains flooded his mind now, and coiled about it, tighter and tighter.

  “All that exists down here serves the will of the Skittering Dark.” The voice of the stranger drew back. “And soon, you too will serve that will.”

  “Chains.”

  “What?”

  “CHAINS!”

  Vulmer screamed the word and flung his arms out to either side of him. From those outstretched hands, created from nothing more than his mind and the energy stored in his body, great metal chains burst forth. The two monsters standing to either side of him did not have time to react as the chains entered their bodies, then exploded wetly from their backs to coil about them in ever tighter loops. For the stranger’s part, he didn’t even have time to look surprised. Chains burst up from the ground about his feet, and coiled around him until bone broke and blood spilt over the links. Vulmer didn’t have time to admire, or be horrified by, his work. The sudden absence of the nightmare’s images from his mind, on top of the sudden drop of energy from his body, sent him into a dark, dreamless sleep.

  ***

  He was woken by, of all things, a voice.

  “We thank you for your service,” said a low, smooth voice.

  “And we are sorry that you had to suffer so much to help us.” This time a voice he recognized, the girl’s. He had fallen slumped, face down against the stone, and so rolled over onto his back to see a woman and the girl he had been escorting standing before him. Where before the girl had looked like an Elreni child, now he would have been hard-pressed to say if she was Human or Elreni, so in between were her features. The same went for the woman; tall, lean, with features sitting between Elreni and Human. She too wore a robe, though this was made of black silk, and contrasted with her bone-white skin.

  “What is going on? Why are you sorry that I had to suffer?”

  “We could not protect you from their influence, and so we had to hope that you could resist them, and keep your mind intact to achieve our goal.” This from the woman, who regarded him with eyes the color of steel.

  “Goals?” Vulmer’s mind was a mess, and contrary to his desires, it kept jumping back to the images from the nightmare.

  “Yes. We could not strike down the servant. Our efforts are sworn to keep their masters at bay.”

  “But those masters”—the girl picked up from where the woman stopped in an eerily perfect way—“found out we couldn’t strike directly at their servants, and so we must resort to unconventional methods to deal with them.”

  Vulmer was glad he was sitting, because this was getting to be too much.<
br />
  “I do not understand. I just want to get out of here.” It was true. After all, it seemed like the girl had found someone else to protect her, or she was far more than just a little girl. That same girl nodded sympathetically.

  “We understand; however, you cannot leave intact.”

  “The servants learned the flesh arts well.” This from the woman. “The servant you killed represents the pinnacle of that art, one who can dwell on the surface, and further their master’s plans in secrecy. But to make such a servant, those with the gift are needed.”

  “And if you were to tell your tale, then others of your talent would come,” the girl said, sadness evident in her tone and expression. A rising panic started to build in Vulmer, and he began to say something as the girl reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. The instant she touched him, it felt as if a great force pushed him down and he sprawled onto his back, shocked at the effect of her touch. He tried to Draw for a spell but felt the energy leave his body through the place where she touched him. The woman crouched down and grasped his chin in her hand, with strong fingers that felt like they were made of iron. She fixed him with eyes now devoid of iris or pupil. Instead, he gazed into twin solid black orbs that he felt himself drowning in. He tried to look away, to close the protective sheath over the nodules and tendrils that served as his eyes, but nothing happened. That gaze was far, far too strong. As he felt his mind slowly dissolving into her eyes, something stuck. A memory from his nightmare, the one piece of his mind that seemed resistant to this strange woman’s gaze. As everything he was dissolved into nothingness, he clung to this last memory, as Vulmer Rotris, Feyweaver of the Elreni, Alvan Okryd, husband and soon to be father, died.

  ***

  Danni sat crouched under the shade of the tree. He and his friend, Aaron, were stalking a wounded plains wyrm that had fled into the woods. The uneven, broken ground combined with the trees themselves had made the hunt difficult, and Aaron had told him to wait here while he tried to get in front of the beast and drive it towards him; that had been an hour ago, by his reckoning. Suddenly a man came into view a few yards ahead of him. Recognizing Aaron, Danni stood, alarmed at his sudden appearance. Upon seeing him, his friend gestured at him.

  “Come, quick!” he shouted, before turning and running off the way he had come. Danni followed and soon found his friend standing over the huddled form of an Elreni, pointed ears showing clearly through the dirty, tangled mass of hair.

  “Who is he?” the first man asked.

  “Dunno,” his friend replied, scratching his jaw. “He came out of a cave mouth up thataways. I saw him. He had his hands on his face, and he was stumbling. I jumped up and came over to give him a hand, but he collapsed before I got to him. So I wrapped him up and ran to get you.”

  Nodding at this, Danni bent down to the Elreni and gently tried to remove the hands clasped around his face, wanting to see if he recognized him. The hands came away easily, and the man jumped back, hissing in shock. His friend peered down and then recoiled, his face twisted in a grimace of disgust. The Elreni’s face was a mess of wounds that seemed to start from his eye sockets and track lines over his face. His hair was a tangled mess of blood and dirt. As the pair stood, shocked by what they were seeing, they saw the Elreni’s mouth move, as if he were speaking silent words. They stared at each other, then back at the Elreni. After a while, the first hunter spoke.

  “We should get him back to the village, there’s still a good chance he will live if we can get him help.”

  His friend nodded, and they bent to pick him up. As they straightened, Aaron said, “We can’t tell anyone where he came from. If they ask, we tell them we found him in the woods.”

  Danni nodded in agreement. Though he and Aaron were sensible enough, there may well be some in their village who would react poorly when they were told where the stranger came from. Everyone in the village knew exactly where the local caves, sinkholes, and tunnels led to. There had always been legends, rumors, and tales from those brave or stupid enough to venture near the entrances into that dread place called the Skittering Dark. Tales of figures half-glimpsed out of the corner of one's eye as they turned from whatever dark opening they had been looking at.

  But this region had a particular tale, a story of a young boy mad enough to venture down one of those openings. By the time a search party had found him, it was days later. They’d found the boy with his face pressed against a tree, his eyes gouged out by his own hands, and all the boy would say was, “Her.”

  As they helped the stranger walk, the hunter wondered if this unfortunate man had fallen victim to the same thing that had claimed that boy’s mind. He was just thinking that perhaps they ought to start blocking off some of those caves, with logs and boulders and such, when the Elreni began to speak. He talked in a faint and broken voice and seemed to be repeating himself. Intrigued, the hunter listened intently as the Elreni reached the start of his loop.

  “The one who walks the dark will come,

  Bound in chains of his own making, he will come,

  He will take up the cause of another,

  and seek to open cages that should never have had doors.”