Chapter 7 It’s a Start
IT’S A START
Venrick lay in the charred grass where wisps of fire still smoldered between the blackened blades.
The final moments of Tel Roan’s passing replayed themselves like a feverish dream.
The rotten smell of acid and sulfur filled the air, blending into a tacky taste at the back of his throat.
He watched himself as if through a gossamer veil, his own body sprawled unconscious with his eyes left eerily wide open in the wake of his Paragon’s death.
A woman stood beside him, her presence commanding yet ethereal.
Her eyes, the deep verdant green of a springtime forest, held an air of dread as she searched his face.
The stern set of her full lips betrayed the goddess-like beauty of her appeal.
Her umber hair danced like woven streamers in the wind.
Her plate armor was masterfully crafted to her warrior’s form, while complimenting the feminine curves of her body.
The armor held the subtle sheen of brismil enchantment.
She bore a matching brismil sword across her back, her hand held to the side, ready to summon it at a moment’s notice.
While the vision was threatening, Venrick couldn’t take his eyes off this beautiful stranger for an entirely different reason than fear.
As he regained consciousness, Venrick’s heart thundered in his chest, each beat sending fresh waves of pain through his skull. The boundary between dream and waking wavered. His mouth felt as though he’d been gargling sand, though he knew no wine or mead had passed his lips.
Who was that woman? The question echoed in his thoughts. Even at his most inspired, he couldn’t have conjured someone who embodied such raw power and otherworldly beauty in equal measure.
Reality slowly came into focus around him.
Tel’s massive six-wheel weapons wagon stood sentinel nearby.
Thunder and Giant were, miraculously, still hitched to its frame.
The massive draft horses grazed in a meadow that seemed too vibrant, too alive, given the weight of what Venrick had just been through.
In the distance, the old-growth pine of the Everburning Forest rose like pillars, their massive trunks disappearing into a canopy of green.
A threatening storm gathered strength on the horizon.
Thunder clouds merged with columns of smoke.
Lightning scored through the building firestorm, bright white bolts crackling through like spears of godly power.
“What’s happened to me?” he said, not seeing anyone familiar.
His memory of the meeting in the Vermillion Keep returned in fragments, sharp-edged and burning.
Archmagus Hierro De Vonte’s face looked down on him with grim determination.
The General’s presence, heavy as an executioner’s axe.
The air in the room had actually twisted with dark fae magic.
Then came the truth, more devastating than exile, more final than death.
He fingered the ice-cold chain permanently affixed to his neck. The crimson amulet hung like a drop of frozen blood; its weight far greater than the ore it was cast from. The truth could no longer be denied. Venrick bore a curse that made death seem merciful.
This can’t be happening.
He got to his feet and assessed the situation.
He stood alone now outside the city wall that had sheltered him since Tel Roan saw something other than a mixed-blood in him.
The Vermillion Keep’s rejection stung worse than the curse.
Though he’d devoted his life thus far to its protection, the leadership no longer recognized him as one of their own.
The missing Hyalite hung over him like a guillotine.
“Where do I start?” he said to no one, the words scattering on the wind.
What would Tel do? he wondered.
Tel would have donned his brismil armor and ridden north like an avenging storm. He would have faced down the four Kings themselves, dragon-fire and fury made manifest. But Venrick had no dragon’s wings to carry him northward, no armies to command. No brismil armor to—
The thought struck him at once. Tel’s brismil scale would’ve materialized back in the chest.
He vaulted toward the rear of the wagon that was built with ironwood and boxy like a mobile cabin. The door groaned open, the wards allowing Venrick to duck through and enter.
Inside, he silently inventoried Tel’s mobile armory, each piece with its own story.
Stories he knew first-hand. Spears that could pierce a northern wolf’s hide leaned against swords that bore gouges from monstrous kurr claws.
Flails whose heads had broken shades rested beside axes that could bite through a Northern orc with ease.
Bows hung with their quivers, one of which Venrick had used to shoot down a dragon.
Yet among this arsenal of legends, one item stood apart: Tel’s brismil scale and sword pair.
Venrick moved a heavy trunk aside to reveal a false panel craftily designed into the rear corner.
Within it, three enchanted chests rested undisturbed, each vibrating with protective wards.
Three repositories of power, each sealed with spells that could give even a god pause.
He retrieved the smallest, its weight deceptive for its size.
“How could something so rare, so powerful, have been overlooked?” His whispered words stirred the magical currents in the air, resonating against the weapons around him. A chill crept up his spine, not from fear but from proximity to such concentrated power.
His hand brushed the raised runes on the lid, and the magic responded instantly.
Light spiraled from the ancient symbols like liquid starlight, flowing across his skin until he glowed.
The wards recognized him, or should have, their magic beat in time with his heart.
A soft click echoed through the wagon, but when he tried to lift the lid, it remained sealed as if forged from a single piece of metal.
A memory rose, sharp and crystal clear. The elven fortress in Gambria materialized around him, its living walls of ancient heartwood held centuries of accumulated magic. Spiraling patterns of silverleaf decorated the wood beams with a warm, gentle luminescence.
Tel stood before him. The Paragon’s presence filled the chamber like the summer storm clouds heavy with Giving Rain. “Venrick, place your hand on this chest,” he commanded, his voice resonating with the quiet authority of one who had lived a full life as a dragonrider.
“What will it do?” Venrick asked, remembering how the magic emanating from the chest felt like heat from a hearth.
“These runes,” Tel traced a finger over the symbols, making them flare with sapphire light, “will deny entry to all others. The magic woven here is both ancient and eternal, powerful enough to resist divine interference. Only the most formidable mages in recorded history could hope to breach these wards.”
The elven enchantress beside them continued with her work. Her fingers danced through the air as she wove spells so complex they left afterimages in Venrick’s vision. “When she finishes, only you and I will command these locks. Not even the King himself could extract a Hyalite without our consent.”
The complexity of the magic still left Venrick in awe. No Yogo Sapphires gleamed from its surface; no Hyalites pulsed with stored power. The wards operated on principles older than the Kingdom itself, a testament to a magic that had outlived empires. That had outlived Tel.
The brass hinges gleamed mockingly as Venrick held the locked chest. Venrick blinked, watching his reflection fracture across the polished surface as his smile crumbled.
“Why?” The word escaped as barely a whisper. He tried to open it again, feeling the subtle ripple of protective enchantments beneath his fingertips.
His muscles strained against the unyielding magic. The veins in his forearms stood out like twisted rope. The lid remained immovable, radiating a quiet defiance in rhythm with his mounting frustration.
“But I was there when he cast the spells,” Venrick protested, his voice echoing hollow against the wagon’s thick wooden walls. The magic did not respond to him, a silent reminder of his oversight.
He pulled out the largest of the three small chests Tel had concealed in the wagon’s false panel.
The hidden compartment still carried the faint scent of sawdust and preservation spells.
Only one chest yielded to his touch, the Hyalite container.
Its empty interior reflected how he felt at the moment, devoid of hope.
Then, understanding crashed through him like a wave of ice water. During the chests’ creation, he’d only placed his hand on one. “I’m an ashing fool!” Venrick cursed.
The smallest chest slipped from his fingers and clattered against the floorboards.
He looked around, searching for an answer.
Then, with desperate hope, he had an idea.
His gaze darted to the larger chest, the one that had housed the Hyalite.
Though empty at present, it held something else, traces of the magical signature of the perpetrator who broke into the chest.
Could that work? The thought materialized slowly. The chest is magical, and equally powerful magic would have been used to open it. If there’s even a trace left from whoever cast it a tracking charm could work...
The chest sat innocently before him, but Venrick’s mind raced through the implications.
Marcel would have needed immense magical power to break through the enchantments, and such force would have left scars in the very fabric of the spellwork.
Invisible wounds that, with the right charm, could lead him straight to the thief.
Venrick ducked back out of the wagon and strode back to the horses. Their reins felt cool and familiar against his palms.
“Thunder, Giant, I think it’s time we go and visit a certain goblin informant,” he said with determination.
Giant’s snort carried a distinctly skeptical note as Venrick coaxed his massive head away from the sweet mountain grass.
“I know how it sounds, but I don’t have many options, and it’s a start.”
He guided the bulky wagon toward the mountains.
Within days, Venrick had arrived in a mountain pass where few traveled.
He unhitched Thunder and Giant, leaving them to amble into the sunlit clearing beneath a towering granite cliff.
The entrance to the goblin’s cave was a masterwork of natural camouflage, just another shadow among countless fissures scaling the thousand-foot wall of the unnamed peak in the Astral Range.
As he approached the cliff base, something rolled beneath his boot. Smooth and round, it triggered instinctive revulsion. He stumbled, sending loose stones skittering across the ground.
“What the?” The words died in his throat as he looked down.
A sun-bleached skull grinned up at him. His eyes traced the grisly trail to its owner.
A skeleton sprawled in eternal repose, its long-sleeved ring mail hung like tarnished scales around yellowed bones.
The rusted sword belt served as both a grave marker and a warning.
Goblins were magic creatures not to be trifled with.
The path up the scree field seemed to lengthen with each step. Loose stones shifted dangerously beneath his feet. The air grew thinner and carried whispers of old violence. Each breath tasted of long-spilled blood.
A narrow ledge jutted out from the mountainside, barely wide enough for someone to edge along.
A hundred feet of empty air yawned beneath, hungry for the unwary.
Venrick pressed his shoulder against the granite face, feeling the stone’s natural cool against his body.
Deep claw marks scored the ledge, their edges still sharp despite countless seasons of wind and rain.
Dark stains mottled the rock face. The stains spoke silent testimonies of those who had died here.
The mouth of the cave bore the lingering traces of Ingamar’s fury.
Black scorch marks were visible from where dragon-fire had taught this goblin the wisdom of cooperation with a dragon and his rider.
Should I be doing this? he wondered as the wind tugged at his clothes.
Is my life worth risking against a creature who’d gladly see our Kingdom fall?
But the curse around his neck acted as a chilling reminder.
Choice was a luxury he no longer possessed.
The Vermillion Keep’s rejection had sealed his fate, forced his hand, and turned his perception of who he had been fighting for on its head.
He wasn’t acting in the interests of the Kingdom anymore. He was acting for self-preservation.
“I can do this,” he whispered in an effort to convince himself.
The entrance to the cave gaped before him; darkness seemed to bleed outward into the daylight.
He entered the hungry shadows. Dank air assaulted his nostrils as a mixture of cave filth and sweat underlaid with a foreign musk that could only be one thing, goblin-scent.
Deep in the darkness, a sickly yellow light shone, but something was off about the glow.
Venrick focused on the dim light, taking a careful step forward.
A loose stone beneath his foot betrayed him, skittering across the cave floor with a sound like rattling bones.
The yellow glow vanished instantly, plunging him into absolute darkness.
His heart hammered against his ribs. He held his breath and listened, only to hear the thunderous silence of his own blood rushing in his ears.
Then came the clicking.
It started softly, a gentle tap-tap-tap against stone that echoed wrongly in the darkness.
The sound grew closer, each click accompanied by the scrape of claws on rock.
Now a low, guttural groan reverberated through the cave.
The sound carried centuries of malevolent cunning.
When the goblin finally spoke, his words dripped with spite.
“Venrick,” Zorjan’s voice rasped, the name becoming something else entirely in the goblin’s mouth. “What are you doing here?”