A Facet for the Gem (15 page)

As the tattered cloth brushed his skin, making him feel he’d donned his boyish dress all over again, he parted the coarse fabric and dropped it aside, holding the jagged Goldshard tenderly within his palm. A rustling in the woods abruptly jolted him to his feet, and, not wishing to greet its source, he ran again.

This was his chance, now as he sprinted along the crest of a valley that sloped down within the forest. They were still coming; he hadn’t lost them completely. And… someone, the same from before, was closing in, perhaps watching him even now. Slowing to a halt, he lifted the Goldshard and stared hungrily into its smooth, bright center. “Make me strong,” he begged it. “Make me strong enough to defeat Felkoth. Strong enough to defeat all his armies. Give me all that I need… please.”

He waited for it to respond with some mystical infusion of power, squeezing so tightly his fingertips ached, when the cloaked man suddenly emerged from the nearby woods and came directly at him. Stepping back in startled surprise, Morlen lost his footing on the ravine’s precarious ledge and tumbled down as one rock after another took a hefty toll. Each boulder forcefully slowed his fall until he came to rest on his back, bloodied and disheveled, still firmly clasping the Goldshard.

Head spinning as his body screamed out, all he could make out was the blurred outline of the hooded figure, observing him from above, and then slowly descending toward him against a faded backdrop.

And then, finally, all went dark.

Chapter Nine

The Gem

M
orthadus knew they
were close. He’d dwelt below for so long, undisturbed, but the youngest would soon seek him out, and the other would no doubt show him the way. And though he had eluded that one for so many centuries, he could not elude them both, not for long.

He would never have peace, he lamented. They would find him, sooner rather than later. It was only a matter of time now, and he would have nowhere left to retreat.

Morlen quivered as they stood so menacingly around him, cold eyes stabbing deeper than their blades soon would. They barked with satisfaction, savoring each torturous moment while preparing to finish him. But then, the murderous huddle parted to reveal someone who stood in the surrounding brush: a boy, watching the scene fearfully. Lying in agony on his back, it took every ounce of dying strength to reach out to him, begging for help. But, the boy would not move. He was merely going to watch him die.

Screaming in sorrow, he rolled over the shadowy edge of a cliff, falling to his death. He slammed chest-first to hard ground, and the impact brought his nightmare to an abrupt end. Turning over slowly with a resentful groan, he shuddered to realize that he was underground, deep in the belly of a torch-lit chamber with jagged rock walls that rose to meet a ceiling of stalactites. Had Felkoth brought him back to Korindelf and locked him away beneath the castle?

Straining to push his body upright, he ascertained by the presence of select items—a fleece-covered armchair, a table strewn with cups, even a raised pallet off of which it seemed he’d fallen to the floor—that someone lived within this place. And, as far as he could detect, they were absent for the time being.

Thoughts of Felkoth quickly shot another pang of dread into his mind: What had become of the Goldshard? Had his captor taken it for himself, and used it? Searching frantically, he left no corner unchecked, when a bright ray flagged him from beneath the makeshift bed. There it was; it must have fallen from him when he’d rolled onto the floor, meaning whoever had brought him here hadn’t wanted it.

Its prickly edges were so welcome against his hand, and he placed it back within his inner chest pocket as his bruised memory gradually recalled bits and pieces of what had transpired before he’d awoken here. He’d used it, he suddenly remembered with a thrill. He’d used the Goldshard, during his final moments in the Isle! It was the last thing he could recollect; everything following the act remained blurred. That was why he ached so terribly; the shock from being imbued with the treasure’s power must have overwhelmed him, and would not soon pass.

Examining his muscles under the torchlight, he swelled with confidence, and hungered to face down Felkoth and all his men, wherever they may be. He would not be weak, not anymore.

His bow and quiver lay beside the sheathed Crystal Blade, close to where he’d been sleeping, and notions of capture partly faded. He appeared to be in the anteroom of a much larger complex that sprawled out into other chambers and passageways, and behind him a corridor held a small stairwell that led up to two trapdoors. Hearing voices above ground, he ascended the steps to push both wooden panels open in a cascade of displaced snow, and emerged in the middle of a clearing surrounded by tall firs and pines, drably colored by winter’s arrival.

“Well, you always do seem to find your way into some sort of trouble, don’t you?” spoke a voice he knew well, one he’d feared he would never hear again. Looking behind him, he saw the gray-bearded face he’d nearly forgotten, realizing the identity of the cloaked figure who had pursued him in the Isle.

“Nottleforf?” Morlen said with disbelief when the old man removed his hood.

“Yes, young Morlen,” he replied as Morlen came to stand before him. “My,” he marveled, now eye to eye with him. “Were I a lesser wizard, I might have taken you for Matufinn back in the Isle. He was close to your age when last we…”

Images from recent memory stabbed Morlen cruelly upon mention of his father, a pain that Nottleforf left alone before it bled worse.

“Let’s move along,” said the wizard. “Needless to say, we have a great deal to discuss.”

But, Morlen could not avert his eyes from the black clouds in the distant sky, which billowed from the burning Isle. He worried for its many beasts and realized, from its location relative to his own, he must now be at the edge of the Eaglemasters’ realm.

“The Isle’s bloom will live on,” said Nottleforf sullenly, following his line of sight. “For all who remain inside.”

Morlen’s fists tightened as he pictured Felkoth’s army gathered in droves ten paces from his father’s body, knowing the poor measures he’d hurriedly taken to conceal it must have failed shortly thereafter.

“Have they come yet?” Morlen asked hotly, eager for the second chance to engage his pursuers.

Nottleforf’s voice carried warning. “No, Morlen.”

“They reached the lake before I fled,” said Morlen. “Felkoth’s bound to lead them through at any moment.”

“I mean, no, this battle is not yours,” Nottleforf clarified when Morlen turned to face him.

“Not mine?” Morlen protested. “You saw what he and I were up against in there. You saw them come for me after they’d finished with him. I’m ready now. I won’t run, not this time—”

“The Eaglemasters are well aware of what is coming,” Nottleforf interjected, holding up a hand to halt his restlessness. “King Valdis has suspected for some time that people from Korindelf were being brought into his realm, finally discovering exactly how after tracing members of the last group your father sent over. I brought warning to them after collecting you, and evacuation was already under way. Now Valdis and three thousand men-at-arms fly ready above the capital, waiting for foe, not friend.”

The wizard held him with a firm look, one he’d seen many times growing up that asked him to cease his advances into certain areas of discussion. And now, a year after learning what many of those questions would have uncovered, he stared back just as pointedly.

“You felt I was in danger?” he asked. “That’s why you came?”

Nottleforf’s eyes calmed. “It is quite rare when I do not feel you are in danger. And though you were no longer under my care, the instinct to care remained very much intact.”

Thinking back to his years in Korindelf, Morlen could not imagine any specific experience being very different if the wizard had not been there. But then again, he might never have grown to have any at all without Nottleforf’s involvement, however remote it was. “What was I to you, back then?” he asked dryly. “And what am I now?”

He detected a strong urge in the old man to look away, one he seemed to take great pains to fight. “Someone,” Nottleforf answered, “whom I would gladly see realized.” Then he motioned that they should make their way through the forest, and Morlen followed beside him.

He enjoyed the abrasive, musty shroud of falling pine needles, reveling in how distant he now felt from the Isle’s pleasures. This was cold and wet, and here there were things that scratched and bit. He could not walk twenty paces without tearing through a sticky web, its uprooted occupants stinging him with their grievances.

“I’ve no doubt you were somewhat shocked upon waking this morning,” said Nottleforf.

Morlen suspected the wizard must be aware that he’d turned to the Goldshard’s power. Surely he’d been found unconscious in the Isle, still clutching it. Why did Nottleforf not rebuke him for using it, when he’d emphatically prohibited such an act?

Wary to delve into that topic, Morlen kept to the one at hand. “That place wasn’t made by men.”

Nottleforf smiled. “No. It is a ferotaur hive, or was, rather, out from which they’d slink in the night to Veldere in its developing years, taking captive any they could, until the Eaglemasters finally hunted them down and emptied it. Now, it sits vacant, dead, though the legend of hungry whispers from the forest where many were taken, never to leave, is alive and well.”

“And this is where you’ve lived?” Morlen asked. “Since Korindelf?”

“For one who can travel to the ends of the earth and back, a residence is unbefitting,” said Nottleforf. Then he grinned. “Though I’ve come to find, an empty tunnel beneath ground where no man dares to tread can once in a while provide a much-needed night’s sleep. But when I journeyed to Veldere last night, seeing that its people were being shipped downriver to the four lower cities, I proposed Valdis send some here, as well, to ease their brimming capacity.”

Trees swayed up ahead, pushed by heavy gusts beneath wings of departing eagles, and their delivered cargo gradually stepped into view. Walking among them, Morlen soon came to realize that every face evoked memories from the last several months.

Each person smiled kindly while he slowly passed: mothers with children in much better condition than he recalled; men gripping canes to steady themselves against pains of past abuse, with marks that would never vanish. Every one of them offered the same look of gratitude, of reclaimed life, that he remembered seeing when his father had first brought them into the Isle.

More recent faces caught him as well—those who’d elected not to depart for immediate safety, instead taking up arms to help free others. Members of the most recently rescued convoy beamed at him now. There were so many—hundreds, all standing together in tribute to the one who’d saved them, stretching far toward some sort of altar. And, finally drawing closer to it, Morlen slowed his breathing, seeing the dry logs upon which rested a shrouded body, broad and tall.

Turning to Nottleforf, his expression widened to ask what his choked voice couldn’t.

Looking back sympathetically, the wizard gave a somber answer. “You were not all that I brought here.” The two walked to the altar’s edge, from beneath which Nottleforf withdrew a folded garment, letting it flow out as Morlen realized it was his cloak, which he had shed to cover his father’s body. Holding it out for him, Nottleforf said reassuringly, “He would have wanted you to keep it.”

Weighed heavily to the ground, Morlen took the cloak, glad to feel its sturdy softness around him as he donned it once again. Then, Nottleforf waited patiently, looking to him for permission, and, taking one last glance at the silent, still outline beneath the unwrinkled sheet, he gave it. Nodding in acknowledgment, the wizard pressed both hands flat to the air until kindling sparked into flame, and soon the pyre raged high, consuming all upon it. Morlen turned and walked away, needing to see no more as the mountain of light released its smoke high above the forest roof, then slowly crumbled to dust in his wake.

After an ensuing hunt, Morlen and the rescued prisoners congregated in the underlying complex for a festive banquet. The center tunnel opened into a modified great hall flanked by roaring hearths with chimneys that pierced the forest floor above, and they dined together at many tables. Each was laden with steaming bowls of rabbit stew, platters of roasted wild pig, and goblets that brimmed with dark ale brought in casks from Veldere.

Morlen savored the melted marbling throughout each tender cut while he sat beside members of the recently freed caravan, with Nottleforf at the head of their table. All of them appeared to have grown much closer over the past week.

“Terrible shame,” the burly farmer among their group wheezed after a large gulp of ale. “I could tell there was something not quite right about that fellow. Scars like that… from what I saw the guards do to so many, if they ever were driven to burn, they were driven to kill. They made no exceptions… I should’ve known.”

“None of us could have,” assured the bearded man opposite him. “I was the closest to him of all of us; he even helped me, though, I didn’t understand his true motives.”

“Enough talk of him,” spoke the woman close beside this one. “He’ll get what’s his, as will all who ever carried a whip behind any of us. Probably at this very moment they’ve pooled into the capital, right under King Valdis’s spear. The Crystal Spear, mind you, a powerful weapon against such foulness.”

Grinning next to her, the man placed his hand over hers. “One of the many fine things I’ve learned of my new wife is how talented she is at regaling an audience with all sorts of legends and stories buried by their respective kingdoms.”

She smiled in return. “Buried, but not forgotten.” Then, facing the rest of them, she asked, “You know of the crystals, yes?” Their blank faces baffled her. Morlen casually focused on his meal, unready to divulge any knowledge on the topic. “They were formed almost a thousand years ago, in the time of Korine the Ancient. And just as Korine was said to be powerful and kind, there was another being who lurked in the shadows, who conjured tremendous destruction and despair, turning men to beasts, and beasts to things far worse.

“He lured thousands with promises of power and long life, twisting and deforming their flesh and bones so they would make war on all others, until the Blessed Ones rose up and halted their oppression, for a time. And Korine cast Him down from these very mountains above us. But, the Enemy dragged Korine down, too, and they both slammed to the ground with such force that parts of them were fused together, creating a crystallized pool.

“And Korine washed Him away with the river that mingled with both of their shed energies. The Speaking River, it came to be called, as some who later found themselves immersed in its depths claimed to have heard prophetic messages from it. Then Korine, gravely wounded, gathered up the crystals and entrusted them to the land’s protectors.”

Morlen’s hip suddenly felt quite bare as he couldn’t help but think of the sword lying a stone’s throw from where they sat. But the Goldshard’s comforting embrace reminded him he was well-equipped for any danger.

“Speaking of whom”—the woman smiled at Morlen now, her attention a pressure he struggled to bear—“you wouldn’t happen to know anything about the first inhabitant of the Forbidden Isle, would you?” she asked hopefully. “The hero who helped the Eaglemasters drive out the shriekers in the Battle of Korindelf? Surely he’s a celebrated figure among your people, isn’t he?”