Ways of Power 1: Power Rises (16 page)

26

At the top of the stairs was a small landing and a door that opened to the right. Rancoth pushed the door open with a creek. Since his parents’ bedroom window had been left open, Rancoth had expected to find the room in shambles. He was surprised to see that it was relatively still in order. Evidently the magic shield that kept out intruders also kept animals and insects at bay.

              All of the furniture in the room was made of a matching dark ebony wood.  The tan silky sheets and maroon blanket and pillows on his parents’ bed looked like someone had just been sleeping in them.

The walls had various paintings of far off places, and one family portrait hung directly across from the bed. There were two nightstands on either side of the bed, and two large dressers under the family portrait. Next to the open window with the rustling drapes were two small cushioned chairs.

              A door stood ajar between the far right dresser and the open window. Rancoth glanced at this and took a deep breath, knowing full well where that door led.

              "Dorbin, why don't you start with the nightstands?  I'll go through the dressers."

Dorbin grunted and began his search.

              Rancoth found nothing in his father’s dresser but clothing and some love letters written by his mother. As he turned his attention to the second dresser, Dorbin suddenly shouted with excitement.

"HERRE IT IS!"

              Rancoth hurried over and peered over the man’s shoulder. "Are you sure?"

              Dorbin held a delicate silver chain necklace with a single pendent. The pendent was a perfect small round orb wrapped in a coiled silver wire, and attached to the chain with a loop. The sphere was exactly like the much larger thinking orb of Rancoth's mother, but instead of a blue-gray mist, this one was a pure white storm.

              "No wonder my mother had wanted to study this," Rancoth said, reaching for the necklace. Dorbin handed it over, but kept his eyes glued to the beautiful piece of jewelry.

              "Well, I guess werre done herre," Dorbin said.

              Rancoth shook his head slightly, before tucking the necklace in the pocket with the doll he had removed from his playroom. "No," he whispered. "Not yet. There is still one more thing I have to do…"

              Dorbin studied the young man with the same intensity he had the tiny orb, and the larger one before that. "Do you want me to go with you?" he asked.

Somehow Rancoth guessed Dorbin knew what he intended.

He smiled slightly, and shrugged his shoulders, "To be honest--I'm not sure. I guess it's up to you." He turned, and walked towards the open window. He glanced out of the corner of his eye, through the open door and down the hall as he passed. Taking a deep breath of the fresh outside air, he pulled in the curtains and closed the window. Resting his forehead against the glass, he looked down at the pond. Then he closed his eyes, willing himself to do what he knew he had to.

              Dorbin stood in silence waiting for him to build up his courage. When Rancoth was ready, he walked out into the hallway. Behind him, Dorbin followed, the wooden floor creaking with the little man’s movements.

              As Rancoth walked down the hall, his breathing went shallow and his heart quickened as he approached his old bedroom. He felt his head spinning, and his stomach began to churn as he stopped short, hands just barely touching the cold hard wood. Then he took several deep breaths and pushed the door open.

              His mother’s shriveled remains were exactly where he remembered. Her skin had turned leathery in this dry climate so close to the desert. Her shrunken lips were pulled back to reveal a toothy grin, and her eye sockets were dark and empty.

There was a large blackened stain that spread out around her middle where her torso was separated from her lower half.  Her legs lay off to the side, still wrapped in the silky white sleeping robe she had been wearing that night. Rancoth’s gaze lingered on her still perfect silvery hair, spread out around her head like some sort of shimmering halo.

He fell to his knees and wept, his body convulsing with the effort. He rocked back and forth as the tears spilled freely to puddle on the floor. "I'm--I'm so sorry," he bawled, desperate for her long-gone spirit to hear his plea. "I didn't know what was happening, I didn't know what I was doing--please Mommy--please forgive me." His nose ran, mixing with the salty tears flooding from his eyes. His vision began to cloud, and finally darkened.

27

Dorbin stood back and watched his young friend's grief, his body shaking with the throws of torment. He too cried, though silently, wanting to rush forward and help his former pupil, but unsure if that was what was best. Finally when he saw Rancoth start to teeter, and fall to the side, he rushed forward. Rancoth had passed out from the relived trauma, but Dorbin couldn't wake him.

Deciding there was nothing left that he could do and their mission accomplished, Dorbin wrapped his arms around the shoulders of the young man and dragged him from the house. He laid Rancoth in the shade by the pond, retrieved their things, and closed the door.

              He dragged Rancoth as far as he could before tiring. He managed to get him about halfway down the hill, and realized that there was no way he would be able get Rancoth back to Illineas on his own. He was not as young as he once was.

Despite his considerable strength from years of smithing, his squat legs just couldn't cover enough distance before he needed to stop. He spent the next several hours trying to wake the young man up, but to no avail. At length, Dorbin decided there was nothing to be done except make sure Rancoth was comfortable and to build them a fire.

              As he collected fallen wood from the surrounding trees, he muttered to himself in frustration. "Damn that Grrecrrum, always jumping in my head when I don't need him. But wherre is he now? Hmm. Playing with that damn cook o' his that's wherre." He shook his head as he threw the wood down next to the pit he had dug earlier.

Dorbin then took out the flint striker that Rancoth had used back in the house to light the oil lamp. He had swiped it before they left the kitchen, thinking it might come in handy later.

              "DO YOU HEARR THAT YOU INFERRNAL MINED RREADERR. RRAN AND I COULD USE YOURR HELP RRIGHT ABOUT NOW!" Dorbin shouted into the air, as he used the striker next to the dry tender. When the leaves and dried grass started smoldering, he leaned in close and blew gently. As the tiny flame licked to life, he added a few twigs, and when the fire had grown enough he fed in the branches.

              Satisfied with the blaze, Dorbin checked on Rancoth once more. He had left the young man under one of the large willow trees a few yards from where he made the fire. Rancoth was breathing normally, and he still had a strong pulse. Dorbin dragged him closer to the fire to help him keep warm. If he didn't know any better Dorbin would have thought the lad was simply taking a late evening nap.

              Secure in the thought that Rancoth was going to be all right, Dorbin sat down next to him and turned his gaze to the sky. Despite all of his shouting, the telepathic leader of the Light Magi would never hear him. Now he had to wait for Rancoth to battle his internal demons, which in many respects were far more formidable than the real ones that the young man could summon.

Dorbin let his thoughts fade and lost himself in the visual symphony of the setting sun. The sky burned with rich pink and dazzling orange before bleeding into deep red. The war of colors soon faded to a dark blue and finally yielded to the cavernous black of night.

Not wanting to leave Rancoth for the time it would have taken to hunt something down, Dorbin ate sparingly from some of the provisions that they had brought from Illineas. He checked on the young man several more times before banking the fire and settling into a restless sleep.

Dorbin was running through the dark dank tunnel. He needed to get out, to get back to the fresh air and open sky. But no matter how fast he ran, or which passage he turned down he was getting no closer to escape. The hundreds of screaming voices echoing through the caverns were deafening. He knew he shouldn't have gone down there, he was told to stay out--but he had to know--the screaming, someone please stop the screaming!

Something grabbed him by the ankle, and he could feel his stomach rise queasily as he fell forward…

Dorbin shook himself awake; the dream was a haunting memory and made him nauseous. The sky was still shrouded in the deep pit of night, and Dorbin moved closer to the smoldering coals. The warm glow it provided helped him to know he was no longer in the nightmare. Dorbin glanced toward Rancoth and leapt to his feet in worry. His friend was gone!

"RRRAN, WHERRE ARRE YOU LAD!" the little Dwalish man yelled. He fell to hands and knees searching for tracks to follow. Finally finding a familiar scuff mark that looked like it came from one of Rancoth's boots, Dorbin jumped up again and ran in the direction he thought it pointed.

After spending what seemed like hours running through the dark, blindly following what he thought might be Rancoth's trail, Dorbin finally found him. As he crested the hill he could see Rancoth in the distance. He was standing in the clearing by his childhood home once more. His dirty blond hair and pale blue robed shoulders were eerily illuminated by the moonlight.

Dorbin slowed down and stopped a few paces behind Rancoth, not sure what to say but happy he had found his young friend.

28

Rancoth stood with his eyes fixed on the stagnant pond beneath his parent's bedroom window. His whole body swayed from side to side.

"Rran, arre you all rright?" Dorbin finally asked, taking a few steps closer to him.

"Yes, Dorbin I'm fine," Rancoth said with a slow soft sigh. "You seemed to be sleeping so soundly when I got up--I didn't want to wake you. It's beautiful, isn't it?" he asked.

"What is?" Dorbin asked back hesitantly.

Rancoth took a deep breath through his nose, sucking in the relatively cool night air. "My parents used to talk about how much they loved the 'music' of the night. I never really understood it until now," he said.

Dorbin cocked his head. "Well--I--ah, suppose so. I neverr rrealy thought about it beforre."

"No, I didn't either until now…" Rancoth trailed off and turned to Dorbin. "Am I evil, Dorbin?" he asked with all seriousness.

Dorbin slowly shook his head. "No lad, yourr not evil. Yourr one o' the most genuinely purre people I've everr known."

Rancoth's eyes began to well up, and he quickly closed them, squeezing out a single tear. He turned back to face the pond, his voice cracking as he spoke. "Then why did she have to die? Why did I kill her?"

Dorbin stood in silence for a moment, and then closed the remaining distance between them. He spun Rancoth around and jerked him down to eye level. Rancoth offered no resistance, limp in his own self-loathing.

"Now you listen to me," he growled. "You didn't kill yourr motherr. That damn crreaturre frrom the bowels o' hell did. Not you!"

"But I called it. It wouldn't have come were it not for me," Rancoth protested his voice barely a whisper.

"That makes no differrence!" Dorbin shouted. "Did you tell it to kill herr?"

"No."

"Exactly. You can no morre blame yourrself forr summoning that demon then you can blame a birrd forr flying." Dorbin moved his face closer to Rancoth's, and lowered his voice to a whisper. "You arre what you arre. No one knew you'd be a warrlock. But you arre, and a thumpen good one no less. But you can't keep blaming yourrself forr what happened son--you can't. You didn't have contrrol overr that beast. And everryone knows that, even yourr fatherr."

Rancoth looked up at that, a brief hint of hope flashed in his heart. He straightened his back and placed a hand on Dorbin’s shoulder. "Just give me some time to myself for a while. I'll be back to the camp you made for us shortly--I just need--to think for a bit."

Dorbin sighed and turned to leave.

"Oh and Dorbin," Rancoth called after him.

Dorbin stopped and looked over his shoulder. "Yes?"

"Thank you."

Dorbin grunted, and nodded once more before disappearing into the dark forest.

29

It wasn't long before Rancoth rejoined Dorbin at the small makeshift camp. Both men sat in silence, neither wanting to interrupt the thoughts of the other. Rancoth ate sparingly, while Dorbin poked at the fire with a long stick, sending little red sparks to dance in the air before winking out. Rancoth finally curled up next to the fire and fell asleep.

The next morning they made their way down the hill and up the road back to Illineas. They passed through briefly to replenish their supplies, and to once more bid farewell to Patrina, Adri, and McRoy. Patrina offered to have Lokijem take them about halfway back to Tower City, since that was the range of his ability. Rancoth preferred to walk, so despite Dorbin's grumbling protests the two of them headed north on the road back home.

They passed a few people on the road. Some were headed to the crystal city to peddle their wares; others were headed north as well. On occasion these people would slow down and visit with the strange duo, but eventually they would split off down a side road, or speed up to make up for lost time.

At midday they could see the first of the small villages that existed along the road between the two large cities. The village had no more than a dozen small wooden buildings lined up along the main causeway. There was a large forest nearby that spread out to the East, and had been heavily harvested.

"Shall we stop for something to eat, here in Cachigo?" Rancoth asked.

Dorbin stopped, and looked at Rancoth with obvious bewilderment.

Rancoth smiled. "Grecrum gave me a detailed map of the area between Tower City and Illineas before we left. All of the small communities are marked."

Dorbin grunted and shrugged his shoulders. "We can if you'rre hungrry," he added.

"It's not so much that I'm hungry. I like being out among people who don't recognize me. It gives me the chance to get to know them and see how they live. That's the real reason I didn't want to be zipped around in the first place. I want to explore. I want to experience. I want to learn." As he spoke, his voice became more excited.

Dorbin smiled. "All rright," he said with a feigned sigh.

They made their way into the town and found the local inn. A sign hung above the door with the picture of a small cozy looking house between the stylized words Valentine's Cottage.

Once inside, they took a seat at one of the many empty tables. The only other customer in the establishment was an old looking farmer who was nursing a drink at the bar. After a few minutes, a plain looking young woman came out through a door beside the bar, and several young voices could be heard coming from the room she left.

"What can I get for you gentlemen?" she asked as she approached their table.

Dorbin grinned at the woman who had rather wide hips, "I'll have what everr you rrecomend," he said.

Rancoth had other things on his mind. "What's going on in that room back there?"

"Oh, that's where we have school for the children. We don't have a lot of kids, so it didn't make sense to build one. My dad volunteered one of the storage rooms to the village, and we modified it to fit the purpose."

"That's verry sweet o' you," Dorbin said, a slight twinkle in his eye as he leaned back to look at the woman's behind when she turned to answer Rancoth's question and wasn't looking.

"I guess," she said with a shrug. "It was my dad's idea. I just take care of the customers and make sure that the teacher has everything he needs. So anything for you sir?" she asked looking at Rancoth.

"Um, I'll have whatever you get for Dorbin here," he answered, still looking at the door she had come out of.

"Two specials coming right up," she said, waving both her hands over the table, one in front of each of them. Much like Rancoth, the woman apparently preferred to use plain language for her magic.

Dorbin inhaled deeply as two bowls filled with a fragrant stew appeared before them, accompanied by some bread, and an amber liquid in a pair of tall glasses.

"Thank you lass. It smells wonderrfull," Dorbin said.

Rancoth also mumbled his gratitude as he tore his eyes away from the back room school, and looked at the dish. It wasn't quite as good a Sahrisa's food, but it was very filling. After they had finished their lunch, both men stood. Dorbin looked at the young lady behind the bar cleaning the counter before he headed towards the exit he signed and mumbled that he wished they had more time.

Rancoth approached the back room and cracked the door slightly. Peeking in, he could see eight or nine children, all facing their ancient gray haired teacher. The old man was an illusionist, and was conjuring the images of some marine wildlife in the air above the children and offering explanations of what they saw.

Rancoth jumped slightly at the voice behind him. "Would you like to go in and watch?"

He let the door close quietly and turned to face the young woman who had served them lunch. "No, thank you. I wouldn't want to interrupt their studies. I was just curious, that's all. I learned things in a much different manner."

The woman bade them farewell and they resumed the trek north on the road through town. Rancoth looked in the shop windows as they went and greeted the people they passed.

"You seem to be acting morre like you'rre old self,” Dorbin said as they left the village behind them. "But we can't dawdle like that everry time we come to a new small town. If we do we'll neverr get back."

"Oh it was only an hour or so. Besides, you would have wanted to stay longer if that sustenancer who served us had offered to sit on your squatty little head," Rancoth said with a chuckle, shoving Dorbin playfully.

They continued on the road until just after sunset and made camp a few hundred feet from the road. Much to Rancoth’s disappointment, they had passed through the next village rather quickly.

"I've been thinking,” Dorbin said as they sat before the campfire “You need some sorrt o' way to defend yourrself besides yourr magic.”

"Hmm, I was thinking about that too. When we were tied up and I was gagged, I felt so helpless when Crujen was hitting you. I suppose I could always use my walking stick, but it's not much of a weapon." Rancoth said pick up the sturdy piece of wood and ran his fingers across its smooth surface.

"Ah well, a walking stick no. But a staff is a forrmidable weapon. We’ll start your training in the morning."

Before going to sleep Dorbin went on to explain how a weapon, any kind of weapon is an extension of its wielders body. How because of this, a staff has many advantages. One of the most important being, that its reach is far superior to most weapons. It can keep one's body further from danger, and if used by an expert can provide quick and deadly bludgeoning blows.

The following morning Rancoth’s training began.  Dorbin used his hammers, setting a slow pace while instructing his pupil.  Even so, their training session resulted in a new collection of bruises for Rancoth, along with him being repeatedly knocked down to the ground.  Come the end of their session, Rancoth thought he was showing some improvement and pressed his attack laughing when he knocked the hammers free from Dorbin's hands. Dorbin smoothly stepped inside Rancoth's guard pulled the knife from his boot and touched the inside of Rancoth’s thigh with the point before smashing his head into Rancoth’s abdomen.  The air rushed from him as he fell to the ground.

Dorbin looked down at Rancoth with a wink and quietly said, "You'rre dead."

"Why?" Rancoth managed with a cough.

"Firrst you got cocky, second neverr forrget that yourr opponent might have morre than one weapon. It's the weapon you don't see that you need to be worried about," Dorbin answered.

After a few more desperate breaths, Rancoth was able to speak more clearly. "No, I understood that. I meant why would you be such an ass and knock the wind out of me."

"If it doesn't hurrt you won't rrememberr the leason as clearrly." Dorbin offered him his hand.

Rancoth gladly took it and pulled himself up again. Dorbin retrieved his hammers and the two of them walked back to the fire a couple of yards away.

Dorbin explained things further as they gathered their things to get back on the road. "If you can't brreath, you can't fight, and you needed to feel that. It's not something that can be explained. Also it makes for a good distrraction. Did you feel that tiny prrick on the inside o' yourr leg?" he asked.

Rancoth nodded.

"Well, you have a larrge vain rright therre. If it gets cut open, you'll bleed out fasterr than if I cut yourr thrroat," Dorbin said.

"I see." Rancoth nodded as they started back toward Tower City.

They continued on until it was nearly dark, the moon and stars making their way into their night time homes. "Well, I think it's time for some rest. But I'd like to practice more tomorrow," Rancoth said added.

"All rright, good night lad," Dorbin said, laying back and resting a hand under his head.

Rancoth did the same, and it wasn't long before both men were sound asleep.

The next day felt longer to Rancoth then the previous one. They didn't run into as many people, and there were no settlements that they came across. They did see a couple of farms set back in the endless sea of grass on either side of the road, but didn't stop.

They practiced some more of Rancoth's staff fighting after stopping for lunch, and though it came about in a different way, it ended the same, with Rancoth on the ground, and Dorbin informing him that he had died again.

The next morning they practiced some more. Sweat beaded between Rancoth's shoulder blades as they sparred and ran down his spine. The muscles in his arms and legs ached, and several of the new bruises on his body were screaming to stop and rest.

Rancoth did his best to ignore the protestations of his body. He was determined to learn what Dorbin could teach him, so that he would not be completely dependent on his magic.

Come the end of their session, Rancoth was in more pain than ever thanks to Dorbin brutally striking him in the groin, he was beginning to wonder if he’d made a mistake in undertaking these lessons.

"Well, you'rre getting betterr,” Dorbin said, surprising him “When we get back to Towerr City we'll have to find you a good Hulden staff fighterr to trrain you prroperrly."

"Umm hmmm," Rancoth squeaked.

"Oh, come on you'll be all rright you baby. You'rre not using them anyway."

Rancoth glared at Dorbin, but didn't offer a retort.

Come that night neither man slept well. Even though they had kept up a good pace over the last few days, and they were exahsted from the practice times, the anticipation of reaching home the next day made it difficult to really relax.