lthough Nemgas was just as excited by the prospect of walking amongst the crystal towers of Carethedor, he found it difficult to restrain Pelurji’s desire to run amongst them. The boy had scarfed his stew down so quickly that Nemgas had only had the time to eat a few bits of potato. Nemgas made him wait -- told him to juggle in fact - while he finished his own dinner. Pelurji juggled his balls faster than he’d ever done before, pleading anew every few moments. But Nemgas kept him there until the last of the stew was in his gullet. Once Nemgas had buckled a sword at his side, as well as a dagger, the two of them left the camp to wander the city.
They were not the only ones sent out to scout the demesnes, but Pelurji was certainly the only child. Many of the other boys looked on in jealousy as Pelurji ran along Nemgas’s side as they crossed from the grasses to the stone causeways once more. But they were all rebuked and those that persisted were sent to their wagons. Nemgas and Pelurji saw none of this of course, as they were busy exploring the city.
The fog that had surrounded the lower portions of the city when they had first emerged from the tunnel had lifted somewhat, but it was still hard to see any of the smaller buildings. Amidst the fog, golden lights glowed though, so they knew they would be able to find their way about. Nemgas aimed them for a nearby light, and the two of them made their way into the fog bank. At first, Nemgas feared that the fog would be like the fog that had surrounded Cenziga, but it was not. It parted before them like it should, and soon, when they looked back they could only make out indistinct blurs of light where the cookfires burned.
What did surprise Nemgas was that there seemed to be a slight wind in the air, always trickling past, tugging at his patchwork jerkin in places, pulling on his hair, especially the two white locks that constantly fell into his face. His ears tingled with each brush of air, as if there was somebody breathing into them. Pelurji did not seem to notice this, so wide were his eyes, and eager his expression as they made their way towards that bit of light.
The building, when they finally saw it, seemed to lurch towards them from the mist. It was wide at its base, straining upwards about five times Nemgas’s height before tapering off into a small dome. The structure was fashioned from tightly packed stone, small grooves lining across its surface, some of them filled with colourful paint. But most of the paint had worn away, revealing the dull grey of the stone. In most of the grooves, a thin layer of dust had settled. The lines of marble that filled the ground passed through and over the roof of the building. They followed one of the lines around, where the ground abruptly lowered several feet. A small slender staircase with ivory railing led them down to the lower level where they found an entranceway into the building.
Nemgas examined the doorway, noting hinges but no door. “‘Twas made of wood,” Nemgas observed, smiling to the boy who was imitating him by examining the other side of the jamb. “The door hath rotted away, but the stone remains.”
Pelurji nodded at that, smiling. “Canst we go in?”
“Aye,” Nemgas said, slipping beneath the transom. The room beyond was dark, but enough light was coming in through the doorway and several high windows that they could see about. The dust was thicker inside, and the room itself was quite empty. What appeared to be chairs of stone were within the room, arranged at a table. Exquisite goblets were set upon that table filled with dust. A closed ewer was sitting beside them. Nemgas saw two other open doorways leading off into other rooms. A spiral staircase followed along one wall. The banister was fashioned from marble and ivory.
Nemgas waled to the table while Pelurji raced up the stairs. The goblets were empty apart form the dust, but a putrid liquid filled the ewer. He stoppered it tightly after only wedging the stopper free for a single moment. The bad airs it held made him gag and stumble backwards. It had been wine once, he assumed, but a thousand years of fermenting had made it horrid beyond belief.
Drink, if you want
Or don’t.
Nemgas turned about then, looking to see who had spoken. Pelurji was upstairs though, and the rest of the room was completely empty. Engraved into the walls were various faces, but they were merely engravings and nothing more. Nemgas took several steps from the table, kicking up dust as he went. He rubbed at his nose, the dust was already beginning to irritate him.
The voices mus have just been his imagination, he assured himself. In a place as strange as this, the mind was bound to conjure forth all sorts of unnatural phenomenon. Nemgas went to investigate the other two rooms, but saw nothing except more of the carvings and other bits of stone furnishings. If this had once been a home, it must have taken a century’s time for all of the intricate carving he’d seen to be accomplished.
When he went back out into the main hall, he saw Pelurji sliding down on the banister, his legs to either side. “Anything above?” he asked with a smile once more on his face.
Pelurji shook his head. “There wast some pretty stone beds, but that wast all.”
“Didst thee hear anyone speaking while thee wast up there?” Nemgas asked slowly, his own voice uncertain.
“Nay,” Pelurji shook his head again. “Didst thee hear something, master Nemgas?”
Nemgas smiled and shook his head. “Nay. ‘Twas just the wind. Let us see if we canst find that dragon.”
This delighted the boy naturally, and soon they were continuing towards the light. Now that they had seen one building and been through it, others started to appear form the fog. Most were like the first, appearing to be abandoned homes, but others seemed to have different purposes, smaller establishments with wrought iron furnaces that had long gone dark, or huge stone kilns still bearing the scars of flame. Some, Nemgas could not even identify what they might have been.
The light they followed through the fog was set upon another of the large obelisks. When they finally stood at its base, Pelurji picked another light to follow, and they did so, venturing deeper and deeper into the gloom. The sound of rippling water brought their attention away from the light for a time as they investigated a small water garden. It was one of the small inlets that fed into the lake, though it had been allowed to pool, and ivory trestles had been built allowing one to cross to a small island of jade in the centre. The ground where once exotic flowers had bloomed was now overgrown with weeds.
Pelurji when he stepped onto the jade isle swung himself off of the bridge, gripping the ivory bannister tightly in one hand. “Nae do that again,” Nemgas scolded suddenly, a cross look upon his face as he joined the boy. “‘Tis thousands of years old. Thou wouldst not want to damage it.”
He plays. He plays!
Nemgas looked up sharply, turning his head from side to side, listening to the air, but felt only the wind.
Pelurji bore a chastened moue. “Forgive me, master Nemgas.” He then noticed the shocked look on the Magyar’s face. “Art something wrong?”
Unable to hear anything, Nemgas shook his head. “Nay, ‘tis the wind and nothing more.” He smiled, though still unsettled by the voices he’d heard. Perhaps there were restless spirits wandering the ruins, he thought ruefully. But as long as they could not harm him or the boy, he did not care what they said.
They stayed for several minutes more at the jade isle. Pelurji knelt down and splashed his hand in the water a few times, laughing as he managed to get a bit of the ice cold spray on Nemgas’s legs. But with the garden full of nothing but weeds, there was little else to hold them to the isle. And so they continued on their way, Pelurji casting one disappointed look backwards as they went.
But that moment passed soon for the boy, as they happened on several more strange buildings as they walked deeper into the ancient city. Several times their path would end in a sudden wall that rose up for several feet, and they would have to walk along that wall until they came to a gilded staircase or slope that led them up to the next level. But each time they would follow the nearest golden light that shone through the fog. Invariably, this light would lead them deeper within the city, though, much to Nemgas’s consternation, they never seemed to approach the great towers of crystal that he’d seen from afar.
Pelurji however was not dismayed in the slightest at not finding any of those huge towers. The boy’s growing unrest came from not being able to find the bones of the dragon that Pelain had slain. And he said so plainly after they reached the base of yet another obelisk. “I dost not know where the bones art,” Nemgas pointed out, glaring into the fog curious. Though the golden lights still shone all around, he found it hard to tell which of them was the sun.
And then, he began to spin about on his feet, looking in each direction, seeing many shrouded lights dim in the distance, all of them golden, and he realized that he had no idea which of them was the light they had followed into the fog. Nemgas felt his chest tighten. There was no doubt in his mind that they were lost. But the valley they were in was only so large. He merely had to pick a single direction and follow it and they would eventually emerge from the fog. It would then simply be a matter of following along the edge of the valley the city was built within, and they would return to the wagons.
“Master Nemgas!” Pelurji’s insistent voice brought him back to the fog-filled night. He turned and looked down at his boy. “Wast thee listening?”
“Not well enough,” Nemgas admitted with a playful smile to the boy. He had no intention of worrying Pelurji. “What didst thee say?”
“Where art the bones of the dragon? Dost the stories say?”
Nemgas laughed lightly then. “The first I heard of the dragon that Pelain hath slain wast that night in Cheskych.”
At the mention of the boy’s hometown, he became rather quiet. Nemgas felt like he’d misspoken then, seeing the subtle change in the boy’s face. Pelurji looked suddenly forlorn, as if he’d only now realized that he’d left that home forever. Forcing a smile to his face, he gripped the boy’s shoulder tightly and gave it a firm shake. “We shalt find it, my boy. Hath faith in that. I shalt ne’er let thee down.”
Pelurji’s smile slowly returned. “Thou meanest it?”
“Aye, Pelurji. I shalt find thy dragon for thee.” He had no idea how he intended to accomplish it, but strangely enough, he knew he meant it.
The smile blossomed fully then, and the uncertainty of a moment before was forgotten. “Well, what way shalt we go then?”
Nemgas scanned about, deciding that following the lights had not been a wise course after all. But they were certainly the only landmarks he could make out in that thick fog bank. Though he could feel a slight wind prickling at the back of his ears, tugging on the strands of his hair, it did not seem to dislodge the fog at all from that ancient city. Was the fog merely the graying of a beard, one more sign of the city’s age? Was it so old that it had grown the fog?
Lost!
Blood and Ash, lost!
Nemgas turned about then, looking back behind him. The globe that he’d thought would have been there was not, only more of the endless fog. And there was none behind him to have offered up those voices. Pelurji still did not seem to notice the voices, looking about in any direction, hoping always to see some hint of the dragon’s bones.
“We art not lost,” Nemgas said aloud, glaring into the fog. But the voices did not reply to him, making him wonder anew whether he wasn’t just imagining them. But he had heard voices that weren’t there before. While these did not feel like the pounding of Cenziga in his mind, he still knew that he’d heard them.
“Nay!” Pelurji cried, smiling still. “We hath to find the dragon!”
Nemgas gave a short nod. “Aye, find the dragon. ‘Tis what we must do.” He smiled down once to the boy, wondering why Pelurji couldn’t hear the voices. But that thought was struck short as his eyes alighted on something just beyond the boy. He knelt down, and traced his fingers along the line of marble in the stone, noting how smooth it remained even after years of neglect. But it was not the smoothness that concerned him - the line of marble appeared to be perfectly straight in either direction.
“Let us follow this line,” Nemgas announced as he stood back up. “Canst thee walk upon this line, my boy?” Pelurji nodded, and demonstrated that he could, holding either arm out to the side and walking along the line almost as nimbly as a tumbler might. With a smile, Nemgas urged him to continue. “We shalt follow this path then. Methinks it will lead us to the dragon! But only if thou stays upon it always.”
“I shalt not fall!” Pelurji cried defiantly, stepping with both feet on the line, and moving forward slowly, one foot over the next. Nemgas smiled at that, watching his boy slowly press into the fog. He followed quickly after, though did not stay on the line. There was no sense in wasting such a good opportunity to train him in one of the ways of the tumbler. Perhaps he would be able to one day walk across a strand of rope, something that even Nemgas found impossible to do.
Eventually, Pelurji managed to find a simple rhythm in his steps and they began to move much faster. Nemgas noted that the line led them very close to several more of the strangely built homes, but he no longer had any interest in them. At one point the line passed between two walls, so close together that he had to walk sideways just to get through. Along the wall, more of the ancient carvings were set about, though there was something very different about these.
“Pelurji! Stop!” Nemgas commanded, and the boy did so, turning about, both feet still firmly planted upon the marble. But the Magyar did not take notice, as he was running his fingers along the slender carvings, some of the markings shallow, very near the surface, while others were deep and jagged.
But it was not the artwork of the strange city that captured his eyes. It was the long scratches that had been rent into the wall that he worried about. “Look at these,” Nemgas said, drawing his finger along one such scratch. It extended several feet into the slender hall, and then simply stopped. As he traced along, he felt his finger fit into the groove of one, and he let it flow naturally. Up along the wall it slid, shifting up and down here and there, and then, his finger reached the end of the mark, and he thought he would stop. But he did not, there seemed to be a bit of a sudden curve to it, and then his finger flowed back, slipping along another set of scratches, until it retreated back out the wall altogether.
“What made those?” Pelurji asked as he ran his fingers of another scratch set lower in the wall.
“I dost not know,” Nemgas admitted as he stared at them. A similar set occupied the other wall, and it too only went in through the slender passage a few feet. “But we art not the first to tread this way.” He smiled a bit then. “Dost thee think these art the dragon’s claws?” He held both of his hands menacingly towards his boy, teeth bared. Pelurji laughed then and made a face back at him, growling and snarling.
Nemgas laughed then, and looked back to the wall with its strange scratches. “Nay, I dost not think ‘twas a dragon that made these,” he gestured to them, and then began to tap along the wall, starting from the top and going down, touching each scratch mark once. “There art too many for it to be the scratches of dragons. And they dost change in places. Dost thee see that this one ends, and another begins beneath it? Methinks something was rubbing against this wall.”
Even as he said it, an image flooded his mind, one that was strong and clear, of a night in which the fog had been newly settled upon the city. There, a man dressed in gleaming armour, a wolf’s head for his helm, was leading a horse slowly, following one of the lines of marble for his guide. He came to an opening in a wall of stone, and attempted to pass through. But the wall caught at his armour, and he was forced to wiggle his way free, and lead his steed along the wall for some other way around. Yet, he also saw another armoured man helping Pelain break free, but that was not as clear.
You will see.
Nemgas blinked then as the image faded, and found himself hunched up against those close walls. His hands were resting upon his knees, and he felt strangely cold. He held his arms close to his body for a moment until the feeling passed. Glancing up, he scanned about for Pelurji, but his boy was no longer between the walls. “Pelurji!” he called, a strange fear filling his voice. “Where art thee, Pelujri?”
A laughing voice drifted down to him from above, and he glanced upwards suddenly, fearing that it was another of those desultory voices that had begun to haunt him. But instead, there was Pelurji, hands holding one lip of the wall, his feet the other, bracing himself as nimbly as any tumbler might. Though Nemgas still felt the worry in his heart, he felt a bit of pride as well.
“Didst I scare thee?” Pelurji asked, shifting his grip slightly.
“Aye, thou rascal. Now climb down here. We must find the dragon.”
Pelurji gave his arms a push, and then lifted his feet form the other edge of the wall, slipping to just over the carvings, using them to walk down, until he could go no further. He then fell against the wall he clung to with his hands, and climbed the rest of the way down, the carvings his handholds. When he was only two feet from the ground, he pushed off, and planted both feet firmly upon the marble line that went through the middle of the passage. He held his arms before him and beams brightly at Nemgas.
Nemgas patted him on the head and laughed. “Thou art a fine climber! Thou dost surprise me every day with what thee hath learned, Pelurji. A finer Magyar I hath ne’er seen!”
The compliment brightened the boy’s mood even more, and soon he was off through the passage, and out the other side at a brisk pace. Nemgas waited until he emerged from the other side of the wall before he spoke again. “‘Twas Pelain, I dost believe,” he announced then, catching his boy’s attention.
“Pelain?”
“Aye,” Nemgas said, nodding and smiling. “‘Twas Pelain that didst try to go through that wall methinks. With his great armour, he wast too large to fit, and so didst scrape the walls.”
Pelurji’s face filled with a profound awe. “Truly?”
“Truly. Thou hast done something that Pelain couldst not do, my boy. Thou hast been greater than Pelain!”
“Do not jest so,” Pelurji intoned, looking about into the fog as if he were afraid that ancient hero would emerge. But the fog was impassive and still as before.
“I do not jest lightly,” Nemgas said slowly. “But thou art of Pelain. And now thou hast walked where he hast once been.” This did seem to make a smile twitch at the boy’s lips. “And also,” Nemgas added, bending over to stare him in the eye, “Pelain wished to go this way. The dragon must be this way, so we art going where we shouldst!”
That last made Pelurji quite a bit happier. Without anymore words, they both continued on their way along the marble line. Nemgas looked form side to side regularly as he followed after his boy. The lights seemed to swim past them on either side, even the ones that had appeared to be before them. On a whim, he looked up towards the heavens, and could see faintly the golden glow of the crystals. The towers, he realized with a bit of excitement. They were there to his left somewhere. He thought briefly about leaving the line to find them, but decided against it. They had a path now, it would be folly to change it.
You will go there anyway, Ash.
Blood will lead you.
Yes, Blood and Ash, lost!
They will see.
Nemgas tensed as the play of words filled his ears. The voices themselves seemed each subtly different, like the various tunes a dulcimer string could have if the tuning knob were twisted ever so slightly this way or that. They each held the same ephemeral quality, as if they were words spoken centuries ago that had been caught on the wind, finally delivered to an ear that could hear them just then. But they were nevertheless, different voices.
“Couldst thee move a bit faster,” Nemgas asked, clutching his arms about himself more tightly. “I fear night shalt come soon. The others wilt worry if we hath not returned by then.”
“But we shouldst find the dragon! Thou promised.”
“Aye, we shalt find the dragon. But then we must return to the wagons.”
Pelurji nodded, moving as fast as he could and still keep his feet upon that line. Nemgas patted him on the back a few times to urge him to move more quickly, but the boy simply couldn’t handle it any faster just yet. Finally, Nemgas reached beneath the boy’s arms and hoisted him up onto his back. Arms wrapped around his neck, legs crooked through arms, Pelurji rode upon Nemgas’s back.
You cannot run.
His flesh tingling, Nemgas did just that, he picked his pace up until he was jogging at a swift pace across the strange city, following that single line of marble always. Sometimes it would intersect other lines, but it ever went straight. The lights of each globe passed him by, the towers themselves remaining resolutely at his left. And the wind continued to trickle past him, feeling much the same as it had when he was simply walking or standing still. The bounce of Pelurji on his back was a pleasant weight, but it did keep him from going as quickly as he would have liked. But the boy was at least quiet for now, simply watching.
You will see.
Nemgas blinked his eyes, and kept running.
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