FIFTH INSTALLMENT FOR QUEST FOR THE RINGS
5. AN ISLE AND A SECRET
Out of prudent caution for our lives, we spent the remainder of the voyage, almost a full two days, below decks. Only late afternoon of the second day, when calls from the docks could be heard over the roaring wind, did we once more venture to the surface.
The captain greeted us with a cold diffidence. Though his manner implied nonchalance, the dark glint of ire in his eyes belied his still-smoldering emotions. Rorimac took a seemingly casual step toward me when he noticed and rested his hand near his sheathed sword. It was Legolas who spoke first, however, to my great surprise, as he was usually very soft-spoken.
"It seems your journey has been successful, captain," he began diplomatically.
"Seems so," the captain replied warily, narrowing his eyes as if to scan for some hidden meaning behind Legolas' words. His glance flicked toward Legolas' knife only once, and then he again concentrated on the approaching docks.
"We will not require return passage aboard your ship, captain," Legolas continued. "We take full responsibility for any inconvenience caused for you on this voyage and are therefore willing to pay you double the amount originally agreed upon." With that, Legolas removed a fat leather purse from his tunic and handed it to the captain. Surprise stole over the captain's face, quickly replaced by a look of greed and calculation. Before he could say a word, however, Gandalf stepped in and cut him off,
"I am sure you will be satisfied with the amount in that bag, captain. Now, if you will be so kind as to order our scant belongings to be unloaded as a first priority, we will on our way."
"Yes, yes, o' course," the captain mumbled absently as he hefted the heavy purse in his calloused hand. Without so much as another glance in our direction, he turned and barked an order to a nearby sailor, who nodded and scurried below decks.
As I stepped off the docks and onto solid earth, a feeling of intense relief swept through me. "Finally, back on solid ground," I thought. It was evident that the others of our party shared my feelings. Gandalf's mouth quirked into a half-smile as he dug the toes of his shoes into the rocky soil that was characteristic of the wind swept isle. Rorimac actually took a few experimental hops up and down before a broad grin split his face. Legolas knelt down and cupped his hands full of earth. He simply held it there, eyes closed, for a moment, as if he was listening to it. He then opened his eyes and, realizing we were all looking at him peculiarly, gave us a cryptic explanation.
"The earth is wise and should be listened to very carefully. It often tells what men will not." Rising, he dusted his hands off on his leggings and proceeded to look around. I took my queue from him and studied the city as well.
It seemed to simply rise up from the rocks. The entire city was made from the same dull stone as the surrounding countryside. The spike-tipped spires of the central palace could be seen from there on the shore, reaching up to pierce the sky with razor-sharp blades. The whole city was built in that fashion with almost all the building roofs made of stone and peaked to make a sea of obelisks jabbing menacingly at the sky. There was something barren and lonely about the city, about the whole isle, really. It gave the impression of precision, which carried with it a feeling of starkness that made me involuntarily shiver.
"I've found us a ride to the city," Gandalf announced. I gratefully shifted my attention from the hulking presence of the city to Gandalf, who had slipped off unnoticed as we were gazing upward. "A kind fisherman has agreed to let us ride in the back of his wagon with the fish. The smell's not great, but at least he's going all the way into the city."
A kind fisherman indeed. The man we were hitching a ride with was the epitome of a lowlife, with his scraggly beard, roving left eye, and multitude of assorted tattoos. His wagon of 'fish' left a great deal to be desired as well. The wagon was no more than a flatbed of splintering boards fenced in by more rotting wood on three sides. Only slightly green and decidedly slimy netting closed off the end of the wagon, and the fish smell inside was atrocious. We did not in fact share the wagon with any marketable fish. However, there were parts of fish strewn about the floor. Gandalf nearly slipped onto his backside while getting into the cart when he stepped onto a squishy glob of fishy entrails.
I was well past feeling nauseated when we finally reached the gates of the city. "This is where you get off," the fisherman called over his shoulder as he leaned over the side to spit.
"None too soon," I thought queasily as I attempted to stand up. Between the lingering smell and the motion of the cart, I was thoroughly sick. I swayed ponderously on my feet while making my way to the edge of the wagon, and only Legolas' firm grip on my arm kept me from falling face first off of the cart and into the dirt. When he realized I wasn't going to be able to make it on my own, he slipped a steadying arm around my waist and lowered me to the ground. His touch sent waves of excitement reverberating through my mind and even pierced the sea of nausea that was keeping me semi- incapacitated. I gave him a small smile of gratitude that, to my enjoyment, lit up his animated, azure eyes.
"Wow," was all Rorimac could say at first when he gazed up to the top of the wall surrounding the city. All our eyes swung in the direction Rorimac was facing. The wall was adapted only slightly from the original rock. "Seems to me they needn't have tampered with the wall at all. As far as I can tell, this was built naturally for defense." He stared down his whole length of vision appreciatively. "Utterly unassailable," he muttered.
The guards at the gate rather rudely recaptured our attention with the loud clearing of throats. "You next?" one inquired gruffly. Obviously these people did not like outsiders. There was not much trading done between the Mainland and the Isle of Geldrion. Its ports were small, and too removed from the rest of the world for it to be of any great value to most traders. There was also a lack of demanded natural resources that caused many merchants to bypass the island on their way to the Emerald Sea. The feeling became that if the rest of the world wanted nothing to do with them, they wanted nothing to do with the rest of the world.
"Well? Are you going to stand out here in the cold for the rest of the night, or are you going to get into the city before we close the gates?"
"No, no of course not," Gandalf said. "Sorry about the delay."
"Yea, sure," the smaller guard replied. He seemed to have a permanent sneer on his face. "Now, who are you, where are you from, and what is your business here at the Imperial City of Geldrion? I require all your names and a weapons list as well." Gandalf, being the most widely traveled among us, answered.
"Names, I am Gandalf, the large fellow over there is Rorimac-- with a 'c' not a 'k', you oaf." Gandalf stopped him as he looked over the guard's shoulder at the list he was writing.
"Watch it, old man," the guard growled. His companion put a restraining hand on his shoulder and muttered something in his ear about old people.
"The lady is Tarrodwen," Gandalf continued unperturbed, "And the man with the bow is Legolas." The guards' eyes widened considerably when they realized Legolas was one of the fabled Elves, but whether or not they wished to comment on it, they afterward took great pains to ignore the fact.
"Weapons list," the guard snapped. After we had finally gone through all the customs questions about our business and any cargo, our weapons and anything else he felt a need to know, it was already dusk.
Our small party wandered into the city at long last and found an inn with a golden ring emblem on the front sign. The King's Ring was the name of the inn, and as we walked in, the plump innkeeper came to meet us. He was stout man in his early forties, whose baldhead gleamed with sweat that he continually mopped up with a red handkerchief. He smiled at us warily as his beady, pig-like eyes searched us all up and down.
"Welcome to the King's Ring Inn, I am master Norry, the innkeeper. What can I do for you folks tonight?" he inquired.
"Room and board for four people. Three men and a lady. I don't know for how long." Legolas answered. As the innkeeper's eyes swung to the speaker, he noticed something he had not before. Before he could stop himself he blurted,
"You're an...an ELF!" his reaction was much the same as the guardsmens'. Startled disbelief bulged out his eyes and his fat little hand holding the kerchief stopped in mid-mop.
"Is there a problem master Norry?" Legolas asked, slightly perplexed. Though we all knew that elves very seldom ventured across seas, and even less frequently came to the Isle of Geldrion, these people seemed to regard the Elf as a walking myth.
"Nnn...not at all, not at all," he covered, and he once again began mopping his forehead, this time a little more vigorously than strictly necessary. "I can have your rooms ready in a less than a half hour. Ppp...please do have some dinner down here while I attend to your rooms." He bobbed a half bow and quickly returned through the door presumably leading to the kitchen.
"Interesting fellow," I commented as we watched his retreating back curiously. "There's something funny going on around here. I get this feeling of...well...wrongness, for lack of a better word." I confessed.
"Yes, I feel it too," Rorimac piped up. Legolas and Gandalf remained strangely silent.
After a surprisingly delicious dinner of stewed mutton, carrots, and steaming hot bread, chased by a cold mug of local ale, we climbed the stairs to our rooms, led by master Norry himself. "Here you go," he said as he grandly opened the door of one of the rooms. It was small and quite cramped because of the addition of a third bed to the small assortment of other furniture in the room. A white, porcelain washstand, a chest of drawers, and a dented bed stand completed the scant furnishings of the room. Rorimac eyed his short bed dubiously, but said nothing.
"And here's the room for the lady," the innkeeper announced as he opened a door adjacent to the other room. "I hope you are comfortable." By comparison, my room seemed much larger with only one bed and a washstand, chest, and bed stand. I turned from my room to thank master Norry, but strangely enough, he was gone.
Through the shadowed streets of the Imperial City of Geldrion, a cloaked figured lurked. Peering furtively around the corners of buildings, he stealthily slunk from one cluster of shadows to the next, slowly making his way to the palace. Upon reaching the ivory gates, he muttered something low to the guardsmen and they wordlessly allowed him passage. Once inside the palace grounds, he took the back way in through the kitchens to attract as little notice as possible.
No palace is complete without its own set of secret passageways and concealed entrances. The cloaked figure chose one without a pause and continued up it until he reached a panel with a spy hole cut into the wood, masked on the opposite side by intricate engraving in the walls. It led to the emperor's private study, where he presently sat at his desk with his head bent over an ancient manuscript.
At the sound of the secret door opening, he reached under his desk for the hidden throwing knife concealed beneath, but he let his hand fall when he realized who it was. "Master Norry," Emperor Melnion said a bit testily. "What brings you here at this late hour?"
"News, sire, dire news!" Norry exclaimed.
"Well? Out with it man!" the emperor nearly shouted in exasperation.
"Well, umm, some strange foreigners came into my inn today," he was not sounding near as sure of himself as he had hoped. His voice shook a little and he could not keep himself from dry washing his hands as he spoke.
"And..." Melnion prompted.
"And one was an elf, sire!" he blurted all at once.
"What? Are you sure? How many were in the group?" The emperor had left his chair in the meantime and was now standing directly in front of the innkeeper. At the mention of the elf, he grabbed onto the collar of Norry's tunic. Norry squirmed under the close grip of his emperor and struggled a moment to answer.
"Thhh...there were four, sire," he finally choked out.
"Four!" Melnion suddenly loosed his grip on the fabric and allowed Norry to fall to the floor in a heap. "It couldn't be," he muttered to himself as he frantically searched the shelves of one of the many bookcases lining the walls of his study, completely forgetting the presence of the groveling innkeeper. "Aha!" he exclaimed. Pulling an aged parchment from a ponderously leaning stack, he blew off the dust and proceeded to open it. His eyes widened as he reread the words on the stained and yellowed parchment, all the while twisting a thick gold ring around his finger,
"A fellowship of four to take the ring,
With them destruction they will bring.
Without the power Geldrion will die,
All hope rests in the Elfling's eye."
-Brilhoth the Oracle
Don't worry, more lovey-dovey fluff coming up soon, so just hold your horses. =) I have to advance my plot sometime you know. =) Plus* What does the emperor really know about the ring he wears? What's with the oracle's prophecy? Stay tuned to find out!
5. AN ISLE AND A SECRET
Out of prudent caution for our lives, we spent the remainder of the voyage, almost a full two days, below decks. Only late afternoon of the second day, when calls from the docks could be heard over the roaring wind, did we once more venture to the surface.
The captain greeted us with a cold diffidence. Though his manner implied nonchalance, the dark glint of ire in his eyes belied his still-smoldering emotions. Rorimac took a seemingly casual step toward me when he noticed and rested his hand near his sheathed sword. It was Legolas who spoke first, however, to my great surprise, as he was usually very soft-spoken.
"It seems your journey has been successful, captain," he began diplomatically.
"Seems so," the captain replied warily, narrowing his eyes as if to scan for some hidden meaning behind Legolas' words. His glance flicked toward Legolas' knife only once, and then he again concentrated on the approaching docks.
"We will not require return passage aboard your ship, captain," Legolas continued. "We take full responsibility for any inconvenience caused for you on this voyage and are therefore willing to pay you double the amount originally agreed upon." With that, Legolas removed a fat leather purse from his tunic and handed it to the captain. Surprise stole over the captain's face, quickly replaced by a look of greed and calculation. Before he could say a word, however, Gandalf stepped in and cut him off,
"I am sure you will be satisfied with the amount in that bag, captain. Now, if you will be so kind as to order our scant belongings to be unloaded as a first priority, we will on our way."
"Yes, yes, o' course," the captain mumbled absently as he hefted the heavy purse in his calloused hand. Without so much as another glance in our direction, he turned and barked an order to a nearby sailor, who nodded and scurried below decks.
As I stepped off the docks and onto solid earth, a feeling of intense relief swept through me. "Finally, back on solid ground," I thought. It was evident that the others of our party shared my feelings. Gandalf's mouth quirked into a half-smile as he dug the toes of his shoes into the rocky soil that was characteristic of the wind swept isle. Rorimac actually took a few experimental hops up and down before a broad grin split his face. Legolas knelt down and cupped his hands full of earth. He simply held it there, eyes closed, for a moment, as if he was listening to it. He then opened his eyes and, realizing we were all looking at him peculiarly, gave us a cryptic explanation.
"The earth is wise and should be listened to very carefully. It often tells what men will not." Rising, he dusted his hands off on his leggings and proceeded to look around. I took my queue from him and studied the city as well.
It seemed to simply rise up from the rocks. The entire city was made from the same dull stone as the surrounding countryside. The spike-tipped spires of the central palace could be seen from there on the shore, reaching up to pierce the sky with razor-sharp blades. The whole city was built in that fashion with almost all the building roofs made of stone and peaked to make a sea of obelisks jabbing menacingly at the sky. There was something barren and lonely about the city, about the whole isle, really. It gave the impression of precision, which carried with it a feeling of starkness that made me involuntarily shiver.
"I've found us a ride to the city," Gandalf announced. I gratefully shifted my attention from the hulking presence of the city to Gandalf, who had slipped off unnoticed as we were gazing upward. "A kind fisherman has agreed to let us ride in the back of his wagon with the fish. The smell's not great, but at least he's going all the way into the city."
A kind fisherman indeed. The man we were hitching a ride with was the epitome of a lowlife, with his scraggly beard, roving left eye, and multitude of assorted tattoos. His wagon of 'fish' left a great deal to be desired as well. The wagon was no more than a flatbed of splintering boards fenced in by more rotting wood on three sides. Only slightly green and decidedly slimy netting closed off the end of the wagon, and the fish smell inside was atrocious. We did not in fact share the wagon with any marketable fish. However, there were parts of fish strewn about the floor. Gandalf nearly slipped onto his backside while getting into the cart when he stepped onto a squishy glob of fishy entrails.
I was well past feeling nauseated when we finally reached the gates of the city. "This is where you get off," the fisherman called over his shoulder as he leaned over the side to spit.
"None too soon," I thought queasily as I attempted to stand up. Between the lingering smell and the motion of the cart, I was thoroughly sick. I swayed ponderously on my feet while making my way to the edge of the wagon, and only Legolas' firm grip on my arm kept me from falling face first off of the cart and into the dirt. When he realized I wasn't going to be able to make it on my own, he slipped a steadying arm around my waist and lowered me to the ground. His touch sent waves of excitement reverberating through my mind and even pierced the sea of nausea that was keeping me semi- incapacitated. I gave him a small smile of gratitude that, to my enjoyment, lit up his animated, azure eyes.
"Wow," was all Rorimac could say at first when he gazed up to the top of the wall surrounding the city. All our eyes swung in the direction Rorimac was facing. The wall was adapted only slightly from the original rock. "Seems to me they needn't have tampered with the wall at all. As far as I can tell, this was built naturally for defense." He stared down his whole length of vision appreciatively. "Utterly unassailable," he muttered.
The guards at the gate rather rudely recaptured our attention with the loud clearing of throats. "You next?" one inquired gruffly. Obviously these people did not like outsiders. There was not much trading done between the Mainland and the Isle of Geldrion. Its ports were small, and too removed from the rest of the world for it to be of any great value to most traders. There was also a lack of demanded natural resources that caused many merchants to bypass the island on their way to the Emerald Sea. The feeling became that if the rest of the world wanted nothing to do with them, they wanted nothing to do with the rest of the world.
"Well? Are you going to stand out here in the cold for the rest of the night, or are you going to get into the city before we close the gates?"
"No, no of course not," Gandalf said. "Sorry about the delay."
"Yea, sure," the smaller guard replied. He seemed to have a permanent sneer on his face. "Now, who are you, where are you from, and what is your business here at the Imperial City of Geldrion? I require all your names and a weapons list as well." Gandalf, being the most widely traveled among us, answered.
"Names, I am Gandalf, the large fellow over there is Rorimac-- with a 'c' not a 'k', you oaf." Gandalf stopped him as he looked over the guard's shoulder at the list he was writing.
"Watch it, old man," the guard growled. His companion put a restraining hand on his shoulder and muttered something in his ear about old people.
"The lady is Tarrodwen," Gandalf continued unperturbed, "And the man with the bow is Legolas." The guards' eyes widened considerably when they realized Legolas was one of the fabled Elves, but whether or not they wished to comment on it, they afterward took great pains to ignore the fact.
"Weapons list," the guard snapped. After we had finally gone through all the customs questions about our business and any cargo, our weapons and anything else he felt a need to know, it was already dusk.
Our small party wandered into the city at long last and found an inn with a golden ring emblem on the front sign. The King's Ring was the name of the inn, and as we walked in, the plump innkeeper came to meet us. He was stout man in his early forties, whose baldhead gleamed with sweat that he continually mopped up with a red handkerchief. He smiled at us warily as his beady, pig-like eyes searched us all up and down.
"Welcome to the King's Ring Inn, I am master Norry, the innkeeper. What can I do for you folks tonight?" he inquired.
"Room and board for four people. Three men and a lady. I don't know for how long." Legolas answered. As the innkeeper's eyes swung to the speaker, he noticed something he had not before. Before he could stop himself he blurted,
"You're an...an ELF!" his reaction was much the same as the guardsmens'. Startled disbelief bulged out his eyes and his fat little hand holding the kerchief stopped in mid-mop.
"Is there a problem master Norry?" Legolas asked, slightly perplexed. Though we all knew that elves very seldom ventured across seas, and even less frequently came to the Isle of Geldrion, these people seemed to regard the Elf as a walking myth.
"Nnn...not at all, not at all," he covered, and he once again began mopping his forehead, this time a little more vigorously than strictly necessary. "I can have your rooms ready in a less than a half hour. Ppp...please do have some dinner down here while I attend to your rooms." He bobbed a half bow and quickly returned through the door presumably leading to the kitchen.
"Interesting fellow," I commented as we watched his retreating back curiously. "There's something funny going on around here. I get this feeling of...well...wrongness, for lack of a better word." I confessed.
"Yes, I feel it too," Rorimac piped up. Legolas and Gandalf remained strangely silent.
After a surprisingly delicious dinner of stewed mutton, carrots, and steaming hot bread, chased by a cold mug of local ale, we climbed the stairs to our rooms, led by master Norry himself. "Here you go," he said as he grandly opened the door of one of the rooms. It was small and quite cramped because of the addition of a third bed to the small assortment of other furniture in the room. A white, porcelain washstand, a chest of drawers, and a dented bed stand completed the scant furnishings of the room. Rorimac eyed his short bed dubiously, but said nothing.
"And here's the room for the lady," the innkeeper announced as he opened a door adjacent to the other room. "I hope you are comfortable." By comparison, my room seemed much larger with only one bed and a washstand, chest, and bed stand. I turned from my room to thank master Norry, but strangely enough, he was gone.
Through the shadowed streets of the Imperial City of Geldrion, a cloaked figured lurked. Peering furtively around the corners of buildings, he stealthily slunk from one cluster of shadows to the next, slowly making his way to the palace. Upon reaching the ivory gates, he muttered something low to the guardsmen and they wordlessly allowed him passage. Once inside the palace grounds, he took the back way in through the kitchens to attract as little notice as possible.
No palace is complete without its own set of secret passageways and concealed entrances. The cloaked figure chose one without a pause and continued up it until he reached a panel with a spy hole cut into the wood, masked on the opposite side by intricate engraving in the walls. It led to the emperor's private study, where he presently sat at his desk with his head bent over an ancient manuscript.
At the sound of the secret door opening, he reached under his desk for the hidden throwing knife concealed beneath, but he let his hand fall when he realized who it was. "Master Norry," Emperor Melnion said a bit testily. "What brings you here at this late hour?"
"News, sire, dire news!" Norry exclaimed.
"Well? Out with it man!" the emperor nearly shouted in exasperation.
"Well, umm, some strange foreigners came into my inn today," he was not sounding near as sure of himself as he had hoped. His voice shook a little and he could not keep himself from dry washing his hands as he spoke.
"And..." Melnion prompted.
"And one was an elf, sire!" he blurted all at once.
"What? Are you sure? How many were in the group?" The emperor had left his chair in the meantime and was now standing directly in front of the innkeeper. At the mention of the elf, he grabbed onto the collar of Norry's tunic. Norry squirmed under the close grip of his emperor and struggled a moment to answer.
"Thhh...there were four, sire," he finally choked out.
"Four!" Melnion suddenly loosed his grip on the fabric and allowed Norry to fall to the floor in a heap. "It couldn't be," he muttered to himself as he frantically searched the shelves of one of the many bookcases lining the walls of his study, completely forgetting the presence of the groveling innkeeper. "Aha!" he exclaimed. Pulling an aged parchment from a ponderously leaning stack, he blew off the dust and proceeded to open it. His eyes widened as he reread the words on the stained and yellowed parchment, all the while twisting a thick gold ring around his finger,
"A fellowship of four to take the ring,
With them destruction they will bring.
Without the power Geldrion will die,
All hope rests in the Elfling's eye."
-Brilhoth the Oracle
Don't worry, more lovey-dovey fluff coming up soon, so just hold your horses. =) I have to advance my plot sometime you know. =) Plus* What does the emperor really know about the ring he wears? What's with the oracle's prophecy? Stay tuned to find out!