The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 03 - Road of Shadows

by Jeffrey Quyle

  A tall, broad man stood behind him, dressed in leather straps and leggings that were unlike anything Kestrel had ever seen before.

  “Who are you, my lord? Did you cause the fire that just descended from the sky?” Kestrel looked around at the charred landscape, upon which the former wolves did not even register as piles of dust, after such a thorough immolation.

  “I am Growelf,” the man answered.

  Kestrel sank to his knees, in awe and fear. He was in the presence of another human god, the god of fire, who was the philandering mate of Kai, the goddess who had devoted such attention to Kestrel.

  Chapter 2 – Growelf’s Assignment

  “Why she chose someone as hapless as you, and as ugly as you, is beyond me,” the god spoke to Kestrel. “She makes mistakes from time to time, and for some reason choses poorly,” his tone implied something Kestrel didn’t understand, other than to know that it reflected poorly on Kai’s choice of him as her champion.

  “Look at you, standing here about to get eaten by a pack of wolves,” Growelf’s next words confirmed Kestrel’s suspicion about what the god implied. “She could have surely found someone with more sense and ability than this.”

  “Thank you, my lord, for saving me,” Kestrel winced as soon as he spoke, knowing that Growelf deserved some honorific greater than simply ‘my lord.’

  “Saving you?” Growelf continued without comment on the words. “All I’m doing is at best saving you from this sure death only so I can take you to what is even more likely to be your death, unless you have more brains and better fate than I can detect.

  “Come along,” Growelf commanded, motioning with his hand and pointing to where a fiery doorframe suddenly appeared.

  “Where do you wish me to go?” Kestrel asked fearfully.

  “Through the blazing doorway!” Growelf roared. “I just created it for you to pass through, didn’t I?” he stunned Kestrel with the strength of his impatience. “Walk through, now!”

  Kestrel grimly approached the blazing frame that sat upon the soil of the northern Hydrotaz plain. Through the doorway he could barely detect some shades of light and dark that were not present where they stood. The god was sending him through a portal to an unknown destination. Kestrel cautiously held his knife in front of him, then stepped up to the doorway, his eyes closed against the brilliant light and the painful heat, then threw himself forward, and immediately felt free of the fire’s warmth.

  It was not just the absence of the fire that he inexplicably felt on the other side of the doorway; it was an absolute freezing climate. He had traded the relatively mild early winter of Hydrotaz for a location of extreme, arctic conditions. There was a cold, blustery wind blowing fiercely across his skin as he turned to look back at the doorway he had passed through, only to discover that the doorway was gone. There was no trace of the opening that had brought him to where ever he now was.

  He turned back around to face forward, and found Growelf standing in front of him. The frigid surroundings were a mountainside, a wide spot on a road that curled around a forested spur in the stony landscape. The wind that he felt blowing was blowing directly into his face, forcing him to squint his eyes as he felt tears starting to rapidly form.

  “Come along,” Growelf commanded abruptly, and started walking forward along the mountain path. He emanated emotions that Kestrel could detect, a sense of indifference and yet of concern too. The power of the god was so overwhelming that even his feelings burst forth upon the environment around him, and Kestrel was sensitive enough to detect those feelings. He thought back to his exposures to Kai. He had felt love and affection and respect during those encounters; had they been his own feelings, as he had supposed, or had he felt the kindliness of the goddess, emanating out into the world around her?

  “Is the goddess, your mate, Kai, is she well?” he hesitantly asked Growelf, wondering why the goddess hadn’t come to Kestrel directly to assist him, as she usually did.

  There was a momentary flicker of feeling from Growelf, a wavering of concern that the god was not even aware he transmitted to Kestrel. The feeling was one of affection and fear and something else that was too old and too vast for Kestrel to comprehend.

  “She’s as well as she can be right now,” the god rasped as they advanced through the night. “She is constrained by all that weighs her down, but she continues her efforts.

  “Just as you must, puny and foolish as you are. Why she picked you, an elf, as her champion still eludes me,” the god grumbled. “You must continue your pursuit of the impossible goal – you must find the way to defeat these new, southern powers.”

  “I was crossing Hydrotaz on my way to make sure the princess had overcome the Uniontown forces in her country, just when those wolves chased and trapped me,” Kestrel assured the god. “And then I was going to be on my way to fight Uniontown in Graylee.”

  “You’re on your way to battle where I think you need to battle them,” Growelf said in a severe tone.

  Chastened, Kestrel walked on in silence for several steps, following the massive god, letting him provide a degree of protection from the wind. They turned a sharp curve, and followed their path at an angle less exposed to the wind, but within a minute Growelf stopped.

  “Why have we stopped, master?” Kestrel asked after waiting several seconds.

  Growelf stretched his arm out to touch the boulders on the mountainside to their left, and the stony face of the cliff folded back as though it were a curtain, to reveal the entrance to a cave. Growelf waved his hand, and a line of spots of bright flames erupted within the cave, one small jet of fire after another shooting from the wall every few feet along the cavern’s walls, showing that the passage stretched far into the bowels of the mountain.

  “Move on; you need to hurry if you’re going to catch up with them,” Growelf said impatiently.

  Kestrel darted into the cave, thankful to be out of the blustery wind, and he began to weave his way along the pathway inside the mountain, leaning and dodging to avoid the flames that provided illumination and warmth as they sprouted from the walls.

  “Who are we catching up with?” Kestrel asked the god as he turned to look behind him.

  Growelf did not answer; the god was no longer present. And the illuminating flames in the walls extinguished as he walked past them, leaving only darkness behind him.

  Kestrel stopped in his tracks. He was confused, worried, and thankful all at once. He was thankful Growelf had rescued him from his entrapment by the wolves, but he was confused about where he was, why he was there, and where he was going. He was worried that he might not be headed towards Hydrotaz and Graylee, as he had told Silvan and Miskel he intended, and as he wanted to for his own purposes. He was worried that Kai was not the deity that had come to his aid, or even Kere. And he was confused about everything that had happened in the past several hours.

  He noisily blew out his breath, and resolved to move forward, to find out where the cave would lead him and who he was trying to catch up with, whether they were friend of foe. Step by step he walked forward, as the cave delved in a downward-sloping, gently-turning path that astonished him as it continued to plunge deeper into the entrails of the mountain, causing him to imagine the massive amounts of stone that rested above him.

  The flames ahead of him showed a sudden, abrupt end, beyond which there appeared to only be darkness. His steps slowed as he approached the end of Growelf’s lights, uncertain of what he would find beyond. The lights appeared to stop where the tunnel itself ceased to be a tunnel; the faded extension of the last glimmer of the tunnel lights seemed to show that a large chamber existed beyond the mouth of the passageway he was in.

  Just as he reached the opening of the chamber, a large monolith abruptly rose from the floor of his passageway, directly in front of him, a massive stone column that blocked the end of his tunnel, and prevented him from entering the space beyond. Only one of the wall lights remained lit, and in the wavering shadows it cast Kestrel imag
ined that he saw a face on the stony pillar before him.

  “Let him pass, Corrant,” Growelf was suddenly present once again, and spoke suddenly from behind Kestrel’s shoulder, making the elf jump in surprise.

  “This is not your realm, Growelf,” the stone replied, the face Kestrel had imagined proving to be truly a feature of the column. “Do not command me. I have already granted one group of outsiders passage this day.”

  “He intends to join them. I have sent him here so that he may be a part of their mission,” the human god stated.

  “Him – one of them? Have you noticed the color of his skin? His size? He’s one of yours,” the stone replied.

  “He’s actually Kai’s champion,” Growelf answered.

  “This? This is a champion?” the stone seemed unimpressed.

  “This is her fourth champion; the first three all died the first time they had encounters with the southerners – they were no match for the evil ones. This one, despite his appearances, has won several battles, and lived to tell the tale,” Growelf managed to belittle Kestrel while mentioning his victories against Uniontown’s forces. “And if the truth is known, he’s actually more elf than human – Kere has favored him.”

  “But would the sprites accept him, even if he could catch up to them? They’ll have nothing to do with him,” the stone answered.

  “Tell Corrant about your dalliance with the sprites,” Growelf unnerved Kestrel by suddenly telling him to enter the conversation.

  “I am a friend of the sprites and the imps,” Kestrel began, trying to guess at the topic they were discussing. “I have been friends with Dewberry since the day I saved her from a wolf. I know that she and Jonson and others disappeared months ago when they went on a quest to find a way to defeat the Uniontown monster lizards, and I know that a rescue trip was planned to try to find and save them.

  “Is that who I am trying to catch up with?” Kestrel asked the human god. “Are we trying to join the sprites’ rescue mission?”

  “They are mostly imps, not sprites. It is your duty to join them; it is what I have rescued you to do, what I brought you here to do. Corrant should not be standing on foolish technicalities regarding who he may or may not allow to pass here. Corrant,” Growelf addressed the other entity directly, “if you let this small one pass and he succeeds in his mission, then you have aided a great cause, you have helped Kai herself, and you have done your people no harm; in the long run, you’ve helped yourself as well. If you let him pass and he fails, then he will be dead and it is no loss to you.”

  “You find it easy to discard the prerogatives of my people, Growelf,” the stony figure replied. “But these mountains where we stand are their home, and their use should be preserved for the gnomes alone. They are the ones who endure the cold and the thin air and the rugged dangers. I don’t see your humans welcoming any of my gnomes to come live in the soft lands of easy living.”

  Kestrel felt a sudden rush of excitement, as he realized that the stony entity was one of the gods of the gnomes. “I am a friend of the gnomes,” he spoke after a moment’s pause; he spoke in the pidgin version of the gnomish language that he had learned while he had lived with the tribe who had adopted him the previous winter. “I lived in a village of your people, at Amethysaquina, where I was given a cup of the sacred water. I have the eyes of the gnomes, and a friendship with them. I mean them no harm, and no disrespect. But if I may pass through this cavern in order to help Dewberry and Jonson, then perhaps I can rescue them, and help them find a way to rid their land of the monster lizards,” he paused as he tried to recollect the words he needed, “I would ask this boon of you.

  “I care for your gnomes just as much as I care for the sprites and the elves and the humans who have all been my friends and allies in my mission to serve as Kai’s champion,” he beseeched the stony entity.

  There was a profound silence for several seconds. “There is more to you than I expected,” Growelf said softly in his ear. “Perhaps Kai chose more wisely than I thought when she selected you.”

  “I never thought to hear the words of my own people spoken to me from such a mouth,” Corrant said a moment later. “Surely there are no more than a handful of humans who can make such a claim.”

  “I am not truly a human,” Kestrel replied. He slipped the ring off his right hand, the ring that altered his appearance, and slipped it onto his left hand. “I am more truly an elf – born and raised as an elf, at any rate,” he explained, thinking about his internal, ongoing debate about what race he really belonged to.

  “How do you come to have such a talisman that can alter your appearance?” Corrant asked in astonishment.

  “It is Kai’s gift to her champion. She has placed a great deal of her own power into several weapons and tools that she has given this champion in order to support his pursuit of his quest to defeat the southern gods. That is a part of the reason she is so weakened; she has separated a large portion of the power that she has left, and invested it in the weapons that the champion has,” Growelf explained, and Kestrel felt a flare of the god’s emotional aura again, a feeling of pride in the goddess, concern for her well-being, exasperation at her sacrifice, and a lack of trust that Kestrel would truly appreciate and understand the importance and value of the knife and the staff and the ring that he had received.

  Kestrel felt stunned to learn of the powers of his items. “Does she need her powers back?” he asked, impulsively interrupting the gods’ conversation.

  “I would say yes,” Growelf answered, “for her temples and her priests continue to fall victim to the southerners. But she is determined to sacrifice herself to enable you to carry out your quest. Do not fail her elfling.”

  “Because the great goddess of the humans, and the goddess of the elves are both so interested in you, and because you are truly a friend to my own people – I do notice your eyes now, astonishing as it is to see their beautiful color in the face of another race, I will allow you to pass,” Corrant interjected. The stony pillar glided to the side of the tunnel, creating room for Kestrel to pass. “You are choosing to go to a very dangerous place. The sprites will be fortunate to have your assistance, if you can reach them in time to help them on their quest.”

  With that, the rock-like figure of the god melted into the wall of the cave, disappearing from evidence. Kestrel turned in astonishment to Growelf, but the human god was also gone, and so Kestrel stood, alone in the small lit space that was illuminated by the last of Growelf’s lights. Kestrel took a deep breath, sure that he wasn’t prepared for the new adventure he had been thrust into, and still shaken by the starling information that had been revealed in the conversation between the gods.

  Chapter 3 – A Gnome and a New World

  Kestrel stepped through the end of the tunnel, and as he did, the flame behind him extinguished itself, leaving him standing in total darkness. With his elven upbringing, he had little taste for the enclosed feeling of the underground cavern, but he suppressed his unease to concentrate on the circumstances of his situation.

  He remembered an elementary action the gnomes had taught him in the caves of Amethysaquina; he scuffed his boot on the ground, and listened to the echoes that softly returned, indicating an empty chamber of some size stretched out before him. There had to be an obvious way forward, he told himself. The gods seemed expectant that he would make it to the place where the sprites had gone, so becoming lost in the darkness of the cave didn’t sound like a real problem.

  His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness of the cave, and his elven vision, superior to that of regular humans, detected a subtle glow in the distance. It had to represent his destination, he presumed. Cautiously, he began to place one foot in front of the other, not sure of the smoothness of the surface he had to cross. As he stepped across the darkness, he found the floor to be smooth, so he increased his pace slightly, pushing his staff before him to detect any holes or chasms that might provide a barrier, and he reached the glowing target without inci
dent, within ten minutes. The large space felt odd – there was something that made the whole space slightly feel as though it were one huge chamber that replicated the unsettling experience he felt when the sprites transported him from location to location.

  He found himself standing at a doorway, a portal to another tunnel, when he finished crossing the unseen open space, and he was glad to no longer feel the disturbing sensations of the space. The tunnel before him was a visibly rough one, illuminated by an unseen source. He saw that the walls were not smooth and finished; they were as rough-hewn as any natural cave, and curved and twisted in a dramatic fashion, from the little he could see. But a clear light filtered in through them, enough light to convince Kestrel that there was an opening to the outside world, a world lit by daylight, not far away. The light was a dusky red tint, indicative of sunrise presumably.

  Kestrel walked into the new cave, using his staff as a walking stick now, and when he rounded the third significant turn in the cave, he had to stoop down below a low ceiling, and then saw the exit to the outside world, and moved quickly to it.

  The cave opening was wide, though not tall. Kestrel had to stoop again, and he went down on one knee to stop at the entrance and look out upon the dangerous new world he was about to enter.

  The cave he was in was high upon a hillside, looking down a long valley that ran for miles before it turned out of sight. The surrounding hillsides were covered in trees, while a dry stream bed ran down the center of the valley.

  The sun was visible, and it was high in the sky. Kestrel stared at the sun in astonishment. The reddish tint in the daylight he had seen did not come from a rising sun whose yellow light had been filtered by the morning atmosphere – it came from a pair of small red suns that were side-by-side in the overhead sky, casting an ominous, unsettling color scheme over all the lands he could see.