“From Nigel? I don’t see him being the warrior type,” Tia said naively to which Leldeif snorted.

  “Ruddy bastard would snip your head right off and play hockey with it if the rules were what they once were. You can trust me on that,.” Pomen said confidently.

  They traveled through a large open stretch where the hillside became so steep Tia had to keep her inside leg bent so much that her knee kept hitting the ground beside her. She felt that they must have been seen from below by now as there was nothing there to block them from sight. They entered a treed area where the land leveled slightly and they were once again in cover, but she could tell by the way Pomen stopped that it didn’t matter, they were spotted and there were enemies on the trail ahead.

  “I think it is time for you to take the lead, elf,” Pomen said and dropped back beside Tia. “Keep your sword sheathed, girl, there are only eight to ten of them…an advance party I am thinking and good practice for Lindeif.”

  “Leldeif,” Leldeif replied.

  “Whatever, elf, take care of business quickly as there’s more on the way,” Pomen said and Leldeif moved forward to take the point. Pomen turned and whispered into Tia’s ear, “Pay close attention here, girl, for you will never see a better swordsman than one trained by the royal guards in Lilieack, namely… Diedrick.”

  “He was trained by royalty?” Tia said in surprise.

  “He is royalty, lass. First son of Lindrow himself, though he has had a bit of a fall from grace. He didn’t tell you that?”

  “No, we thought that he was simply the drunk bouncer from the tavern next door to the shop.”

  “Well, that could never be. Elves don’t get drunk…not off of spirits anyhow, now pay attention.”

  It was a good half mile before Tia saw any sign of an enemy. In spite of Pomen’s words she readied her rapier and saw him pulling out a long tube while holding several things that looked like darts in his other hand.

  “First son? Doesn’t that make him the king now that Lindrow is dead?” Tia asked.

  “No, it would have, except he didn’t want to be the king and refused the etiquette required for that position. He gratefully passed the honor on to one of his siblings. Some people aren’t cut out for office, it is good that he realized it at such a young age.”

  Tia didn’t know what to expect from a royally trained swordsman, lots of flash no doubt with spins and jumps incorporated in here and there, but what she found was anything but.

  Leldeif was an economy of motion as he approached a group of eight muridai. Four bows came up and he dive rolled toward them as soon as the strings were loosed, getting within the trajectory and coming up inside their weapon’s reach before they could react. Two fell from the point of his blade right away followed by two more from smooth slashes at neck height to both his right and left. A muridai slashed down at him in what could have been a killing blow, but Leldeif stepped inside the swing and plunged his blade into the chest of the assailant. He pushed the standing corpse backwards while it was still on his blade into his companion who was struggling to get around his dead friend. He swung down hard to break through the guard and Leldeif pulled on the corpse so its blade slashed deep into the body on the end of his blade. He let the body drop by pulling his blade out which pulled his adversaries sword down with it. The elf flicked his blade and a long gash appeared on its thigh, then another on its neck, both wounds letting out dark blood in thick globs.

  Much to Tia’s surprise Leldeif then sheathed his blade even though there were two adversaries still approaching him from behind. He grabbed the free arm of the dying muridai and with a spin, flung him into the last two, fouling their attack by tangling their arms. After that it was a matter of two quick plunges with his light blade and all eight were accounted for. He stepped away from the bodies and rejoined their group.

  “Yer gettin rusty, elf,” Pomen said as Tia stared at him in awe.

  “It’ll come back to me,” Leldeif replied as they all crawled into the foliage to make their way to the King’s Trail. They followed what couldn’t even be considered a game path that wound through the deepest of thickets for at least a mile from the confrontation by Tia’s estimates, until they came to a tiny clearing where Pomen stopped them. If Tia could have seen through the trees, she would have seen the vista surrounding Riverhouse filling up with thousands upon thousands of foul folk, but the forest was simply too thick. Pomen stood there for a very long time acting like he was unsure of what to do next.

  “Don’t tell me the great ranger got us lost,” Leldeif said.

  “Shut yer trap, elf. We ain’t lost, there is a certain sequence we have to follow or we could collapse the whole thing and I am trying to remember what it is.”

  “For pits sake, Pomen, I’d rather you said we were lost,” Leldeif replied.

  “Yeah, well if you wouldn’t have skirted your responsibility you would know the sequence from yer training,” Pomen said, referring to him giving up his option to be the king’s heir.

  “If I wouldn’t have done what I did I wouldn’t be here fool.”

  “True, there is that. The world would probably be worse off than it is with yer brother.”

  “I agree, so figure this out and let’s move, I can hear some creepers on our trail since the fight.”

  Tia felt like a spectator even though she is the one who initiated the mission. She had to admit that if it had been just her, she would never have survived the sleepers in the cave let alone that group that Leldeif had taken out and if it had been just her and the elf…they would have never made it off the mountain, which of course they still had to do.

  She looked around the slight clearing that they were in seeing nothing but grass and a few boulders surrounded by evergreen trees whose boughs hung all the way down to the forest floor. The boulders ranged in size and shape, from the size of a child's ball to massive stones the size of country cottages. Nothing looked out of place or otherwise unnatural with the exception of how the stones came to be there in the first place, but that was hardly an anomaly. For the smaller one’s anyways.

  Pomen walked over to one of the smaller stones and tipped it up, spun it counterclockwise twice, and stopped purposefully only to give it a half spin back and up before settling it down into its previous spot. Tia noticed the stone seemed to teeter slightly as if it were trying to fall back into its original position and she could see by the moist spot left on the stone that it would with just the slightest encouragement. He continued selecting other stones of various manageable sizes until he had set seven stones in exactly the same position and stood back in front of the largest stone. All of the stones he had chosen were in the outer most ring around the clearing and he directed everyone to get ready.

  “Stay inside the stones and move when I move,” he said as he lit his pipe. He stoked the fire in the bowl with large puffs that put out billowing smoke before taking a long slow pull on the pipe stem. He pulled the pipe from his lip in a graceful sweep as a wall of smoke shot out from the stem, creating a wall that drifted out from the group. The wall of smoke reached the ring of altered stones at the same time and Tia heard the teetering stones fall into place with a single plop.

  The humongous stone behind them groaned causing Tia and Leldeif to turn and look into the gaping maw that was once solid rock.

  “Quickly now, step inside. Don’t worry about the dark, that will take care of itself.”

  As soon as the entrance closed Tia could see the soft glow from the walls around them. It was dim but as their eyes adjusted, the cavern became navigable as it shaped itself into a smooth walled tunnel that was like walking into a giant square tube.

  “That didn’t seem to be very elvish, Pomen,” Leldeif said.

  “Of course not, you see I am not an elvish king who can just command it and have it be so. I created a rune with the pattern of stones I turned and used the smoke to activated it as well as hide us from view,” Pomen said, quite proud of his accomplishment.

  “How far will this take us?” Tia asked.

  “In times of need the elven kings used to be able to follow this to any of the elven kingdoms as well as other places, however, rumor has it that things have changed and they are rarely, if ever, used now. These passages were built before the great cataclysm and there are things from before that time still down here.”

  “Things? What kind of things?” Leldei asked.

  “I don’t know, elf, I have only been in them once and it wasn’t this branch so we will have to wait and see.”

  “Hmm…something tells me you know more than what you’re letting on,” Leldeif pressed.

  “Things, some say it is creatures and others say there are fumes that burn out your lungs, while still others say that there is spores and slimes that will suck you in. It’s all fanciful nonsense meant to scare people away, I have never seen physical proof of such things. Come now we have a long way to go.”

  “Do you know the way?” Tia asked as she hurried to get next to the gnome.

  “There appears to be only one way now, dear, but I am sure we will have to make some decisions as junctions come available.”

  44

  Power

  “So, what kind of trouble are you messing with here, young man?” A sarcastic voice broke Tic out of his reverie.

  “Oh, hi, Nigel. I’m surprised to see you without a hoard of orphans streaming out behind you,” Tic said with a smile. He had been surprised when the aerial had taken to the children as well as he had, then he became grateful. He had promised to take care of the orphans in order to claim the warehouse that the business needed to expand, but he didn’t have the time let alone the knowledge to handle so many unskilled and uneducated children.

  “Yeah, their teachers finally showed up and asked me to give them a couple of days so they could get the children cleaned up, evaluated, and worked into a schedule. So that being said, I am all yours for the time being.”

  “I don’t really know what you can do to help me. I am in a reactionary situation and have nothing to do until…I guess until we’re attacked out right,” Tic said with a shrug.

  “That hardly sounds like much of a battle plan, Tic. Shouldn’t you be gathering the troops and making spears and such?”

  “No, I don’t think so any way. I am simply a tool here, Nigel. I don’t really know if I even have power on my own, you know?”

  “No, I didn’t know that. So where does your power come from?”

  “I guess this place. Whether it was here always or something they instilled into it when it was being built, I simply don’t know, but it is like a living breathing creature.”

  “Really?” Nigel said and Tic nodded his reply. “So, can you talk to it or does it talk to you?” Nigel asked and Tic shrugged.

  “It’s hard to explain. It shows me what it wants me to know, but no more. If I try to go beyond that it, shuts me down.”

  “Well, surprisingly you’re not very secretive about it. Most people would try to wrap everything into some majestic type of mumbo jumbo in order to awe the populace, but you just act like a lost kid.”

  “That’s because that is what I am, Nigel. I don’t know what I am doing, I’m not a soldier and I have never fought in a war…hell, I’ve never even fought with friends on the playground. I’ve been beaten up by my brothers a couple of times so I know how to get my ass whipped, but I don’t know how to turn that around.”

  “So, what are you going to do when they attack?” Nigel pressed.

  “I don’t think there is much I can do, really. I think I will just sit here and try to keep my mind empty so that the house itself can use me however it needs me. If it even wants to use me that is.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I don’t know what the ultimate goals of Riverhouse are. Maybe it’s sees a grander future for itself in the hands of the usurpers?”

  “Yeah, maybe. Then why would it send you down to face off against that man and woman at the southern end of the tunnel?”

  “I don’t know. What about you, Nigel, why did you stick around? I mean, I know you said that you had nowhere else to go, but I find that kind of hard to fathom. You’ve been trapped for over three hundred years, since before this place was built, yet you stayed without even a second thought. Why?”

  “Here, put this on,” he said and handed Tic a type of harness. “It’s time that you and I took a little ride,” he said and leaped into the air unfurling his massive wings creating a wind that pushed Tic backwards. He put the harness on and waited, suspecting what was going to happen. There was a quick jerk as Tic was lifted from the ground and hauled high into the air in a wide spiraling pattern. They went very high, but they didn’t go very far before Tic was set down on a ledge where Nigel soon joined him.

  “You’re even lighter than the princess, Tic, you have to eat more and maybe start exercising a bit.”

  “I know; I have always been small for my age. What is this place?”

  “It is my home as it was my father’s home before me and his fathers before him,” Nigel said, and Tic turned around to see a cavern stretching deep into the stone. “This is why I stayed, Tic, it is my home and has been my family’s home for several centuries, I have nowhere else to go,” Nigel said as Tic studied the cavern. There were ledges and depressions that could have acted like beds, chairs, or even tables and when he looked closer, he could see centuries of soot from cook fires coating the walls.

  “I always thought your people would have lived in grandiose palaces,” Tic said.

  “Some did, but it was a status thing only. I don’t think that any of them were comfortable in them. This is how we prefer to live, how we were made to live. Cozy isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is cozy…actually it is quite nice. The view is spectacular,” Tic said as he looked down upon the tiny river that flowed in front of his shop and the main entrance harbor in the distance. “I think I understand now; you couldn’t leave because you, of all people, belong here.”

  “People? Do you really consider aerials to be people? Most don’t you know?”

  “We’re all people, Nigel, no matter if you have wings or flippers, you’re people. I know a lot of people don’t agree with me, especially when I refer to you as men, but the truth is, we all come from the same stock.”

  “You know this for a fact do you?”

  “Yes, I do know it for a fact. The cataclysm shattered humanity into hundreds of different factions. I am still human, but I am not human like they were before it all broke apart. I’m not clear on what the differences are or as to whether I am more or less than they were, but I am not like them. Before, there were no elves or dwarfs or even aerials, but there were the traits of those beings within each and every one of them or us.”

  “How do you know this?” Nigel queried. He was used to hearing religious fanatics trying to convince someone of this or that, but with Tic it was different. He wasn’t relaying something that he had heard, he was revealing things that he had studied and researched.

  “I studied it back in Lemure and everything that I have learned from the House has reinforced it. The world was once whole and then it was shattered. As the Rachis mountain range was born so were the races and the face of the earth was changed forever.” Tic paused wondering if he was starting to offend or even bore the aerial, but instead found him to be very thoughtful about what he was being told.

  “I was raised to believe that we, meaning the aerials were the supreme beings of this world. It was easy to believe seeing as how we were in power and had been for centuries. We could soar above our subjects and deal out retribution at will. Yet it all rang hollow to me, even back then. There were too many characteristics or traits that were so much like our own with the only difference being that they, meaning you…didn’t have wings.” Nigel paused as he stared out at the ground far below them. “In truth, I believed it because it was easier and I liked being on top, but then I met the princess and something inside of me changed. I don’t know what or why but it did, and I could no longer look at the other races as something, or someone I should say, to be subjugated. Then you rescued us, and I do know it was you. Her barbaric rune magic never could have gotten us out of that trap. I mocked her right up until the time we appeared in your living room and I was stunned. Everyone was passed out from the stress except me and I could have killed you all and escaped into the wild. Instead, I put you to bed. Don’t ask me why, I just did and I felt better for it. I didn’t know what to expect the next day, but you simply accepted it, you accepted me without question and everything seemed right. Every moment I spend with you, Tic, seems right. It is like for the first time in my life I feel like I belong and nobody is making me do anything that I don’t want to do.”

  “Hmm, did they do that a lot? Your people I mean, did they make you do a lot of things that you didn’t want to do?”

  “Oh yes, the hierarchy demanded it and they were despicable, revolting things…but I did them. I had too… I was a general. Now things are different, worse for my people, but in a way, better for me.”

  “It is quite odd how life is served up to us sometimes, isn’t it?” Tic said.

  “Yes…it is. Are you ready to go?”

  “No, I think that I am going to stay up here for a while if you don’t mind.”

  “No, not at all. However, there is no way down…you’ll have to wait for me to return.”

  “That’s probably for the best, this will be a nice place for me to think for a bit.”

  “Very well then, I will go and check on the kiddies,” Nigel said and fell off the ledge into a graceful glide that encompassed Tic’s entire view in a matter of seconds. It was strangely easy to see why his entire race thought they were supreme beings. To be able to soar through the air like that when no others were able to, could have an effect upon a person’s psyche.