The Four Heroes

by UnicornPammy

A/N: Perhaps because of the setting and overall feel of the game, I find that my prose is, for me, unusually flowery. I apologize if this is irritating, but I suppose it fits. I am enjoying writing this story, even if it is taking a while to get it down. As of this moment, I have far more pages of notes than of actual story, so it may take a while longer yet. Bear with me, friends, few that you may be. I am hoping that the journey for you will be as interesting as it is for me. And please remember that I adore reviews, in whatever form they may take. Actually, I am looking for criticism, positive and negative. It's great to know what I'm doing right, but it's also great to know what I'm doing wrong.

Enjoy!

Chapter 2: The Star, the Spring, and the Storyteller

The Blue Star hung silent and implacable in the late afternoon sky. It was the harvest season, and though most of the trees had shed their leaves, it was still quite warm during the day; and what else was there for a boy caught between childhood and adolescence to do on a warm, drowsy afternoon but lie on his back in the brown grass and stare up at the sky? A few stars were already showing, defying the red afternoon sun that was slowly settling itself down beyond the horizon.

"Dyne!" The well-known voice carried to him on the wind, stirring up a long-suffering sigh that burst from his lips and sent the grass stem on which he'd been chewing flying up into the breeze, only to flutter back down into his nut brown hair.

"What now?" he muttered, swiping the grass stem from his hair and pulling himself slightly up out of his reclining position. He peered over the top of the swaying grass, trying to spot the owner of the annoying voice. At first he didn't see anyone. "Dyne!" He ducked back down. The brat was almost right on top of him! He needed to hide somewhere, and fast.

"Found you!"

Oh, no...

"Go away, Brat," Dyne said over the triumphant crowing of his younger brother, Bretton.

"Don't call me Brat, Dimwit." Bretton put his hands on his hips, the late-afternoon sunlight setting his white-blonde hair afire. "Mother says you need to come home, it's almost dinnertime.

Dyne lay back down, staring up at the darkening sky. A few more stars were now visible, and the Blue Star had taken on a ruddy hue as the sun set. "I'm not hungry."

Bretton flopped down next to his older brother, imitating Dyne's pose with his hands stacked behind his head and his knees poking up at the sky. "Mother says that if you're not hungry, then you can just go on to bed."

"She did not."

"She did so. She said that if you said you weren't hungry, I was to tell you that you had to go to bed early. That's exactly what she said."

"Did not."

"Did so."

"Did not."

"Did so!"

"Dyne! Bretton!"

"On, no!" Bretton said, half sitting up, his eyes wide with apprehension. "Where can we hide?"

Dyne rolled his eyes. Where was a guy supposed to get some peace and quiet?

"I can hear you talking!" Dyne and Bretton's little sister, Strenna, yelled.

Bretton lifted his head up and glared at his sister. "Go away, Strawberry!"

"Shut up, Brat. Mother says you're both to come to dinner."

"Yeah, well, we're not hungry," Bretton replied.

"Mother says that if you're not hungry, you're to go to bed right away. And you won't get to hear the storyteller."

"Storyteller?!" Bretton immediately shot upright. "When did a storyteller come?"

Strenna's voice was irritatingly superior. "While you two were up here staring at that dumb Star."

Dyne gave another long-suffering sigh, trying his best to ignore his two younger siblings. He wasn't having much success. He stubbornly kept his gaze trained on the Blue Star as his little strawberry-blonde sister approached their flattened place in the tall grass. Strenna put her little fists on her hips and stamped a bare foot. "If you don't come right now, I'm going back to tell Mother, and then you'll both be in trouble."

Bretton jumped up. "Come on, Dyne, a storyteller!" His brother and sister waited until he got to his feet before they started for home. It was a rare occurence when someone new, especially an entertainer, came to the village when it wasn't time for the Goddess Festival.

The sun had almost completely disappeared beyond the mountains to the west, rimming twilight's shadows with a last little bit of reddish-gold light. Dyne watched his siblings race each other out of sight; then he made his own way, quite a bit slower, down the hill toward Burg proper. When he reached the bottom of the hill, he saw his family's small house, and his siblings disappearing inside. Dyne stopped, staring at the little cottage made of wood. A storyteller. He felt a small urge to go inside, but there was a stronger urge pulling at him, directing him toward his favorite place. Well, besides the hilltop where he went to look at the Blue Star. He bypassed the house, making his way toward the opening in the woods that marked the path he intended to take. He had made this trip so many times, he could have done it in complete darkness without a single misstep.

The peace of the spring reached out to him as he neared, drawing him into its calming embrace. But tonight it could not pacify him; instead he felt restless, more than usual. He gazed out at the familiar scene, searching for the serenity that hovered just above the surface of the water. As if by a divine hand, white stepping stones were scattered in a mosaic across the blue water. Ancient stone gargoyles stood just above the crystalline surface, and spring water flowed from their open mouths. No one now living knew exactly what had been here, or whether it was time or some other force that had leveled what was probably once a very large, imposing structure. Or even why anyone would want to put a large, imposing structure at the mostly-uninhabited northern tip of Caldor Isle.

Dyne inhaled deeply, trying to draw the calm and peace that floated on the air into his lungs. His restlessness abated somewhat, but there was still an urgency that flowed through his blood. He moved down to the water's edge, knealing and dipping in a finger. It was an unconscious act of testing the temperature, but he would never swim here. His mother's warnings against desecrating so sacred a place were frequent and fierce. Although sometimes he found himself dipping his cupped palm into the water and bringing it up to his mouth to drink, the act was more one of communion than an attempt to quench any thirst.

Today, he felt no such compunction. He was irritable, wanting to be alone, and yet frustrated by his loneliness. So he sat on an ancient white stone and tried to lose himself in the quiet rush of water and the sounds of small animals moving about, chattering and chirping at one another. He raised his face into a sudden breeze, and was startled to hear a voice carried upon it. A pure, beautiful voice filled with love and adoration. He looked around, but saw no one. Immediately he got to his feet, scanning the trees edging the spring, straining to hear the voice again, the voice that was so familiar.

There it was! But it sounded as if it came from all directions, echoing as it did from the tumbled white marble and the surface of the water. It was almost as if it emerged from the very air itself. His heart pounded furiously. Was it...could it be...the Lady herself? Althena? He fell to his knees once more and clasped his hands, bowing his head in a posture of prayer, sure he was about have a religious experience.

The song stopped, and he heard male laughter, muffled though it was by the sound of splashing water from the gargoyle fountains. His eyes snapped open, disappointment burning in his chest. He definitely knew that voice. Dyne stood slowly, then moved around the edge of the spring, heading for a small secluded spot he knew quite well. It was a room that had been part of the old structure; somehow three of its walls and a bit of roof had remained intact while the rest of the ancient building had crumbled over the centuries.

As small children, he and his best friend Noah had used it as a secret hideout. Now, it was a place where Noah and his sweetheart Sara would meet, the only place where they could have any privacy in the tiny village. He felt very certain that's who was there now. And it was Sara singing, entertaining Noah. The quality of her voice was known throughout several nearby villages.

Dyne, dispirited and lonelier than ever, sat quietly on the other side of one of the walls, and listened to their conversation.

"I want to see so many things, Sara," Noah was saying. "The Goddess Temple, the Magic City that floats above it... Can you imagine looking up and seeing a city floating in the clouds?" His voice was filled with awe.

"I'd be afraid it would fall." Sara's voice was skeptical, pragmatic.

"It can't fall, Sara. The Goddess herself holds it in the sky." Noah's superior tone was so like Strenna's when she spoke earlier of the storyteller. Dyne had to hold back the laughter that bubbled up through his churning emotions.

"I heard it was the members of the Magic Guild that keep it in the sky. What if their magic stops working?"

Dyne could feel the tension as silence stretched between them.

Then Noah spoke, his voice tinged with anger. "Sara, why do you--"

"I just don't want you to go anywhere!" Dyne heard her tears even if he couldn't see them. "Please don't leave me. Please stay with me. Please..."

Noah made soothing noises, quiet promises of acquiescence. But Sara would not be soothed. "How can we get married if you go off and get hurt in some strange place?"

"Married?" Noah sounded dazed.

"And how can we raise our children together if you're not here?"

"Children?" Noah sounded out of breath.

Dyne could listen no more. He stood just as silently as he had sat and quit the beauty and serenity of his sanctuary, no longer his alone. He made his way home, his heart so heavy it felt as if it must have been hanging somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach, instead of perching proudly behind his breastbone.

But still that urgency burned in him, pushing him into a run. He shot forth from the spring clearing, out into the meadow just south of the village. He ran right up to the front door of his house, bending over and grasping his knees when he reached it, his lungs feeling as if they might burst. And yet he hadn't wanted to stop at his front door. He'd wanted to keep running, past his house, away from Burg, all the way to the sea. Beyond, if he could manage it.

He regained his breath, and reached for the door, the wooden latch smooth beneath his fingers, very familiar in his hand. And he hated that familiarity. Even as he turned the latch, his entire being was yearning for something different, something new. Something that would give his boring life some meaning.

Trying to avoid having to talk to anyone, Dyne tucked his head as he entered his home and moved across the main room toward the ladder that led to the loft he shared with Bretton. His father's voice stopped him.

"Dyne," came the deep, quiet voice of his bear-like sire. "You should show some respect and say hello to our guest."

Dyne's head snapped up. All eyes in the room were now trained upon him. Four pairs he knew; one was quite unfamiliar. They were ancient, blueish-green, watery eyes. They belonged to an old man with curly white hair circling his crown and falling from his chin in long, soft waves. He wore an ancient gray traveling robe; a tall, twisted walking stick leaned against the wall behind his chair.

The storyteller was here? Dyne had expected him to be holding court at the inn, not sitting in Dyne's own chair at the family dinner table. He found himself unable to speak, pinned as he was by the old man's searching eyes.

"Forgive him, Learned," came the half-amused, half-stern voice of Dyne's father. Dyne saw his father's dark eyes twinkling, and his dark brown beard twitched as he smiled at his eldest son. "He does not usually take up residence in doorways. He is simply awed by your presence."

Dyne blinked and shook himself, feeling as if he were suddenly coming awake after having slept for a very long time. He looked up, and once more felt himself pierced by those sharp, odd-colored eyes.

"Learned," his father spoke again. "This is our eldest, Dyne."

The eyes narrowed, regarding him quite closely. Dyne almost felt as if he were undergoing some sort of test.

"Dyne, say hello to our guest," his father urged again.

Dyne opened his mouth. When he could find no words, he simply bowed his head in a slow, deferential nod.

When he raised his head, he saw an approving smile on the old man's face.

"Well met, Dyne of Burg." His voice rumbled like that of a bear, surprisingly strong for one so old. The storyteller offered Dyne a nod of his own. "I am most pleased to meet you. My name is Cass."