Chapter 13 Zorjan’s Lair #2
“Be gone before you pass your curse onto me,” Zorjan insisted, his voice carrying the weight of centuries old superstitions. The space between them grew heavy with the lingering scent of spent magic and cave moss.
“I’m not leaving here until you show me how I can track down the person who opened this case last.”
“No,” Zorjan hissed.
Venrick stepped forward, pressing the sword against the goblin’s skin.
“I know you can do it. I’ve seen you create tracking charms for Tel.
You said you only needed the trace of magic.
The last person to open this chest did it by magical force to steal Tel’s Hyalite.
Make a tracking charm for me; lead me to the person who cast the last spell on it, then I’ll leave. You’ll never see me again.”
A change washed over Zorjan’s scarred features, subtle yet profound.
“Your curse hinges on the retrieval of a Hyalite?” The goblin’s smile spread across his face like a fresh wound, teeth gleaming wet in the dim light.
“One that’s ownership is already claimed by someone other than the Vermillion Keep?
” he chuckled, a sickly sound. “You should’ve let my poison kill you.
The only way out of a binding curse like this is by either killing the mage who cursed you or by completing their mission.
Either of which you alone do not have the skill to do. You’re a dead man walking.”
“That’s right, Zorjan, I am a dead man walking. And right now, if I were you, I’d be afraid because I don’t have anything to lose. I’ll do whatever it takes to force that tracking charm out of you.”
Zorjan’s expression curdled like milk in summer heat, the lines deepening across his face.
His clawed fingers twitched at his sides.
“Tell me, Venrick, if you find this Hyalite, what will you do with it? Will you be an honorable servant of Lamar and bring it back to the Vermillion Keep or will you use it to your advantage?”
Venrick’s response was measured, each word carefully chosen. “Why do you assume that my curse has bound me to the Keep? Curses are outlawed in Lamar, but not in Nordraven.”
“The Keeps have overlooked you, haven’t they?” Zorjan said, eyes narrowing. “Never given you a chance. Now they see a way to get rid of you.”
“Will you perform this service or am I going to have to force you to?” Venrick pressed the sword, forcing Zorjan to lean back.
A strange look kindled in Zorjan’s eyes. “No. I never did like Tel or his dragon. You, however, have been put in a curious position.”
“If you won’t help me—”
“I’ll help you,” Zorjan interrupted. “But just this once and not in the way you’ve demanded.
I will leave you with this: A curse has forced you to begin, a quest unclear where hope is thin.
Follow the flame that guides the way, for if you ignore it, your death will come that day.
Track the fire, winged and bright, or lose yourself to your curse’s plight. ”
“How does that help me?”
Zorjan’s bloodied teeth flashed as he snapped them at Venrick in warning.
Venrick stumbled backward, ready to feel the goblin’s weight on his sword.
Zorjan didn’t attack, however. With the snap of his fingers the door exploded inward.
Sunlight crashed through the opening like a physical force.
The searing wall of radiance blinded Venrick momentarily.
He twisted, walking away as his eyes slowly adjusted to the daylight.
His boots scraped against stone as he felt the air open around him.
Suddenly, the mountain breeze whistled past his ears as he teetered on the precipice.
He’d nearly forgotten that the cave opened to a deadly fall.
Desperate, he caught himself as loose pebbles cascaded off the edge of the crag.
The cave door thundered shut. Venrick’s eyes adjusted. He was standing alone on the narrow ledge outside the cave with the box under his arm.
“No!” The word tore from his throat as he hammered against the unyielding stone.
He wedged his fingers into barely visible seams, pulling until his tendons quivered form the effort.
Finally, the door yielded with grinding protest, creating just enough space for him to squeeze through.
But the shadows had already swallowed any trace of the goblin.
“Zorjan!” Venrick cried futilely into the empty chambers.
The cave’s depths beckoned with branching fissures. Each offered a possible escape route. The openings gaped like hungry mouths, leading deeper into the heart of the mountain. Venrick’s experienced eye recognized Zorjan’s advantage underground. Venrick couldn’t find him now.
With his plans in ruins, Venrick tucked the enchanted chest under his arm once more and sheathed his sword. The treacherous mountain path demanded his full attention, the weight of failure added to the burden of the box.
Thunder and Giant still grazed peacefully in the meadow when he returned to the wagon, their calm presence a stark contrast to the tension he felt.
The six-wheeled armored wagon accepted the chest back into the confines of its warded cavity.
As Venrick retrieved his medical kit, the same one he’d used countless times in Tel’s service, he examined the bite with growing awe.
“That bite should’ve incapacitated me. Ash, it probably should’ve killed me,” he muttered. He knew full well that adult goblins could control their venom as precisely as an archer controls each draw.
He used sterile water to attend to the wound. Where there should have been blackened flesh and corrupted veins, he found only clean punctures. The healing salve he applied sank into the wounds with a cooling sensation, but Venrick’s attention was drawn to the three empty chests.
The combination of elven magic bound within the dwarven runes had done more than simply dispel the toxin. It had rejected it entirely, as if the venom had never existed. “How?” His question went unanswered.
A decade of serving alongside a Paragon had taught Venrick the fundamental truth of magic used ethically.
Spells spoken by magical races required power, and that power came mostly from Yogo Sapphire, and less frequently, with significantly more powerful Hyalite Orbs.
The magical races of Sataran, magi, elves, dwarves, and orcs, were born with the ability to channel this power.
The production of Hyalites and Yogos in Lamar only happened in the Everburning Forest. While the Paragons and Knights of Lamar and Nordraven held contests to retrieve the powerful objects, war to dominate the forest persisted in the east. As long as dragon-bonding offered the only path for humans to gain magical power over the other races, war between Nordraven’s four kingdoms and the Kingdom of Lamar would be everlasting.
To Venrick’s knowledge, the only thing other than Hyalites and Yogos that could permanently contain magical energy were runes.
His half-elven heritage whispered of untapped potential, power that Tel had dismissed, insisting proper training could only come through the Paragon Academies’ rigorous path to Knighthood based at Lamar’s three great Keeps.
Venrick gathered the leather reins and climbed aboard the wagon, guiding his team back out of the mountains.
When he reached the intersection of roads, one traveling north/south along the eastern front of the Astral Range, the other heading from the mountains due east toward the region of Lamar where the King’s armies were thick with operations and training camps.
He considered bypassing the war camps and trying to escape across the sea to Gambria, where elves reigned.
He knew they wouldn’t accept him as one of their own, but being an outcast was better than being cursed.
If he abandoned his search for the Hyalite, however, the curse would kill him.
Venrick resigned himself to the fact that if he wanted to live, he had to find the Hyalite.
The wagon wheels cut fresh trails into earth still damp with morning dew.
For days, he rode blindly north hoping something would offer a sign of where to look.
Zorjan’s prophecy haunted his thoughts throughout another week as he wandered Northern Lamar, until one day, something in the air changed.
Venrick pulled the wagon to a halt. The sudden silence was broken only by the gentle snorting of Thunder and Giant, their breath creating small clouds in the cooling air.
“Did Zorjan already know something had happened to Tel?” The words fell into the space between him and his horses, an old habit born from years of travel on lonely roads.
Sometimes, in moments like these, the horses’ ears would twitch with almost human understanding.
Thunder’s tail swished, cutting through the air with a whisper of horsehair against leather.
“He knew that I was cursed when he tasted my blood.” Venrick’s fingers absently traced the now-faint punctures on his arm.
His flesh remained tender from the goblin’s bite.
“Curses in Lamar are illegal, so why didn’t Zorjan assume it was the Nordraven Kings who were sending me to retrieve the Hyalite? ”
The puzzle pieces shifted in his mind like pieces of a complex lock finally finding alignment.
“Zorjan might not have known that I was forced into going after the Hyalite for the Vermillion Keep, but once he tasted the curse in my blood, he figured it out.” The words came faster now, each revelation building on the last. “We need to go back to the beginning.”
With newfound purpose, Venrick pointed the wagon toward the Everburning Forest. The wheels ground against loose stone as Thunder and Giant responded to his urgency.
Their hooves struck the earth with renewed vigor.
As they approached the crossroads where opposing signs pointed toward Fletcher’s Passage and Stormwatch, something in the road caught his eye.
A pattern in the dirt made his heart skip a beat. He descended from the wagon. His boots crunched on scattered gravel as he knelt to examine the massive impressions that marred the earth.
“Is that...” His fingers hovered over the print, feeling the residual warmth that only dragon claws could leave in their wake. “It is. These are fresh dragon tracks!”
Thunder and Giant’s reaction was immediate and unmistakable. Their nostrils flared wide, drinking in the familiar scent that had followed Tel’s golden dragon for years. Thunder’s hoof struck the ground with military precision, while Giant’s repeated snorts relayed his recognition of Ingamar.
Venrick’s gaze swept the late afternoon sky, searching for any sign of golden scales glinting in the sun. The trees around him seemed to hold their breath, but no massive silhouette broke the endless blue canvas overhead.
Back in the driver’s seat, the wooden planks creaking beneath his weight, Venrick guided his team eastward toward Fletcher’s Passage. His mind raced with possibilities.
If it is Ingamar, and I could coax him back, his instincts could lead me to the Hyalite, he thought, the idea burning bright as forge-fire in his mind.
Then, another realization hit. “Ingamar has Tel’s scabbard strapped to his harness. That means the brismil blade is still on him.”
The tracks led him perilously close to civilization, an unlikely choice for a riderless dragon. Something about this felt wrong, like a song played perfectly but in the wrong key. At the edge of town, where wildlands surrendered to settled earth, the massive prints simply vanished.
“Ingamar?” Venrick called across the wind-touched grass, hope making his voice rise at the edges.
The trees to his right swayed, their branches lifting on the winds. No golden scales gleamed between their trunks; no familiar roar answered his summons.
“Ingamar!” The second call held more command, born of years serving alongside a Paragon, but still he was met with silence.
A bitter taste coated the back of his throat as Venrick recalled his years of strained interactions with the proud dragon.
Ingamar had always viewed him with barely concealed disdain, tolerating his presence only out of loyalty to Tel.
Now, standing at the dragon’s launch point where massive claws had gouged the earth, Venrick studied the fresh wagon tracks that dominated the path into Fletcher’s Landing.
His hand rose to his chin, calloused fingers scratching against rough stubble as a thought took shape.
“Ingamar, who are you following, and why?”