AUTHORS NOTE:
Thanks for the Story AND Author Favourite/Follow: Raynard the fox!
Havok22: Don't worry, we'll be catching up with another Shard soon ;-)
Chapter 90
30th Day of Late Summer 768 n.c
I dreamed of the Other Shard and of the lands around us. I was previously not aware of how wide the mountains to our south were, but the tunnel through them must extend for an entire day's ride at least. The Other Shard split into three and floated off in two different directions to glow as beacons. One was to our west, near where the mountains met the coast but the other two were on the other side of the mountains in Allarth! Almost directly south of where I floated one of the Other Shard's hovered, at the foot of a mountain surrounded by forest. To the south west of that Shard was a large lake and in the middle of the lake an island, it was there that the other Other Shard came to rest.
This revelation made me very excited, for I guessed that the closer of the two would be near my Grandparents village, but there was also another very close by.
The Other Shard popped back as a single manifestation and giggled before saying with a smirk, "time to wake up, glad I'm not you."
She disappeared and left me alone in the void just long enough to allow me to ponder upon her words before I woke up...
...And immediately regretted it. The sun was shining through the shuttered windows straight into my eyes making my head beat as if it were filled with an entire tribe of kobolds hammering the inside my skull and my stomach rumbled in a turbulent manner threatening imminent expulsion if I dared to move too far or too quickly. The noise from the common rooms below us only added to the torture. I let out a moan that was answered by another equally pained one moments later from the direction of the other bed.
I wondered if Tenebrae would be kind to me and prayed for Cure Light Wounds in the hope that it would fix some of my hangover. The familiar tingle of ecstasy spread through my body and I was so distracted by the immediate removal of pain and nausea that I let out a little gasp of pleasure.
I felt so much relieved by the prayer that I almost jumped up out of bed, the noise of which caused Karalin to force open one eye; that widened rapidly in surprise at my alacrity.
"How?" She croaked, prompting me to move to her side and lay my hand on top of hers.
I whispered my prayer for Cure Light Wounds and watched with a smirk as she let out a fairly loud moan of pleasure that even caused her legs to stiffen and shake.
"What?" she exclaimed once she had regained her breath, "how?"
I was smirking at her reaction and told her, somewhat guiltily, "I'm not just a wizard. I'm a priestess as well."
She looked at me incredulously, "no healing by a sister or brother ever made me feel like that!"
"Different Gods and Goddesses have different methods," I explained cryptically, then quickly added as I stood up, hoping to distract her, "what do you say to breakfast?"
She smiled and blushed, her face more flushed than it even was moments before, "Breakfast sounds lovely, but… I know I said that I'm only attracted towards men," she said, then added hastily, "and I am, but if you can make me feel like that with only a prayer, I might consider staying in this room all day cutting my fingers on my blade."
She said it with such a straight face that I was caught out when she started laughing, which caused me to gently whap her on the arm and join in myself.
When we entered the common room we were greeted by a serving girl with a cheerful, "Happy Celestine's Waning!"
It was a proclamation that caught me by surprise, as that placed the date firmly as the last day of Late Summer! I must have been unconscious under Shard's altar for far longer than I had originally thought.
"Oh!" I exclaimed aloud, "and it's a tenday," I realised and asked the serving girl, "are there any stores open later today?"
She responded by giving me a smile, "first time in Hillwaeholm then?" She didn't await a response on my part and continued to explain, "we in Carn generally worship on the tenday but the Allarthian's worship on the one day; the first, the eleventh and the twenty-first. Because the tunnel and gate require constant guarding on both sides they needed to come to an agreement or else two days every ten would close the gate. So, we decided to worship on the one day just like the Allarthians. So every one day, the tunnel gates are closed until the lunch time bells. But of course, even on the one day in Hillwaeholm most Allarthian owned business' open as normal." She added with a haughty whisper, "they aren't that serious about worshipping their gods as we are about Mithras," as if that proved that the Allarthian gods were false.
Interestingly, from the knowledge granted to me by Tenebrae and through discussions with Shard, I knew that the minor powers were just as real as the major ones, albeit not quite as powerful.
The breakfast options included the usual Carnian fried breakfast staples of bacon, eggs, bread and mushrooms but also included a selection of strange pastries (which the serving girl described as different types of buttery sweetbreads) as well as fruits, cheeses and berries.
We ordered one serve of the usual Carnian breakfast as well as a selection of pastries, fruits, cheeses and berries to share between us. The serving girl asked us if we would like some squeezed juice or some kaf.
She described the unknown drink as, "Allarthian, made from a crushed and ground kaf bean that makes a dark coloured liquid that's bitter and nutty, it's served hot but cooled down with a little milk and sweetened with a touch of honey. It does very well to wake you up and keep you awake at night."
We decided to sample some kaf as well as some of their squeezed juice.
It definitely had an interesting flavour and we both decided that we quite liked the idea of having such a light breakfast as the Allarthian's preferred. We weren't sure what it was, but something we ate caused quite an unpleasant reaction that caused us both to seek the outhouse in a very urgent manner.
Once we had finished, we decided to seek out some stores to sell our excess goods to. Firstly, the cask of Elvish firewine. We fetched the barrel from our room, brought it down to the common room and sat it up on top of the bar. The publican looked at us in confusion and we asked him for a small cup.
"You can't be drinking your own grog in here, it's mine or nothing," he declared.
"This is not for us to drink, but for you," I told him, "if you recognise the taste, you'll recognise it's worth."
His eyebrows rose, but he did fetch a glass and pour a small amount from the barrel.
Upon taking a sniff his eyes widened and he exclaimed, "I don't need a taste at all, I'd recognise Elvish Firewine just from the smell."
"Take a taste at least, to make sure that it's still good," I told him.
He shook his head, "lass, Elvish Firewine never goes to vinegar. But I'll have a taste to bring back the memories of the first time It ever touched my tongue."
He tilted the cup and a flush lit his cheeks the moment the liquid contained therein entered his mouth. He swallowed, then lowered the cup and let out a contented sigh.
"That sure does bring back some memories," he said in a wistful tone, "seventy Suns," he added with finality, "seventy Suns for the barrel."
I looked at Karalin, who nodded, before extending my hand; which he eagerly took and shook.
"I'll just fetch the coin from back here," he said as he disappeared through a door behind the bar.
Karalin looked at me in excitement and "Gorgrim said fifty…" Her face fell and all the excitement and joy drained away at the memory and mention of our dwarvish once-companion.
I reached out a comforting hand that she took and held onto tightly. We stood there in silence, while the Inn's common room bustled around us until the Innkeeper returned with a bag full of coin.
He started counting out coins onto the bar and got up to his second stack of ten suns when he paused and asked, "do you mind Allarthian gold?"
"What's the difference?" I asked.
"Very little," he explained, "their gold piece is close enough to the weight of our own that we here in Hillawaeholm treat it as the same, but merchants tell that they are treated as less than a Sun in Castlemere. Their silvers are smaller though and trade at twenty silvers to a sun and their coppers are bigger; five coppers to a moon or ten coppers to a silver coin."
"Well, we're planning on heading into Allarth and if they are the same then that will be fine," I said, planning to take the Allarthian Gold Coins if Karalin had an objection.
She didn't, and we soon divided the seven piles of coins between us, making her coin purse much heavier but having little effect upon my magical one.
We then headed upstairs to divide up the things that we wanted to keep and those we wanted to sell. We settled on bags for our own two horses with excess things for one pack horse only, with the rest to be sold (including the horses).
We headed out to find shops willing to buy our things, managing to trade off most of it at the first store we came across: The Hillwae General Store. The old grizzled man who owned the store was happy enough to take almost everything except for our foodstuffs, weapons, armour and horses. He was also kind enough to direct us to other traders who would be happy to buy these things and thus it was before the lunch bells that we had managed to successfully divest ourselves of all excess baggage with a substantial amount of coins in exchange.
We re-stocked our dried and cured meats and bought ourselves some bacon and eggs to enjoy through the next few days' travel. Rather than wait until the lunch time bells on the Early Autumn, we returned to the Mink and Shovel to pack our things and order a meal to take on the road. The Innkeeper sent up the stable boy to take our things down to our horses (although we would pack them ourselves) and he fixed us up a travel meal to take with us for the princely sum of one gold sun.
We were soon packed and on our way, with some cold roasted beef and gravy between slices of bread wrapped up in wax coated parchment that were delicious and we both thought was a very clever way to make a travelling meal; the innkeeper had also packed two skins of Merryman Ale to wash it down with which was very much appreciated. We made our way to the great tunnel in the mountain at the end of the street that was to be our pathway into Allarth.
There was a wall blocking off the tunnel about forty feet in, with two large iron braced wooden gate doors wide open to allow passage. Guards were standing on either side of the gate, the ones on the town side all wore brown and grey uniforms, the ones inside the tunnel wore purple and black uniforms with silver piping that appeared to be of a substantially better quality than the Carnian ones.
We stopped behind two merchants on carts with their various guards and retinue and waited our turn to be waved through. We noticed that the brown and grey guards seemed to be taking names and details of the travellers and writing them down into a large tome, while the purple, black and silver guards were taking money before everybody was allowed to pass.
When it was our turn the moustachioed brown guard who was writing in the tome asked us, "names, place of birth and reason for travel?"
"Sharein Askilain," I answered but was unsure how much detail he wanted for the other questions, so I offered, "Easthaven?"
"Is that a town?" he asked and I gave him a nod, "Easthaven, what country is that in?"
"Oh, Carn," I answered, "Carn. Easthaven Shire, Eastholm District in the Baronocracy of Eastholm."
He nodded as he transcribed that into the book, then asked again without looking up, "why do you want to go through to Allarth?"
"Uh, I need to visit an altar there?" I answered.
He sighed a little and grunted out, "religious."
"What about you?" He asked with a glance at Karalin.
"Karalin of Cottelswoode, Cottelswoode village, Iskashire, Iskar District," she answered and I assumed that he wrote down 'religious' as well.
Once he had finished writing in his book he waved us through, we moved forward the ten feet to the next set of guards. These had a slight accent, a lilt to their words that was almost musical. I couldn't remember much of my grandmother, but I could remember her strange way of speaking.
"It's one copper coin for each person and another for each horse," he said, "so, that'll make five copper coins to pass through."
The way that he pronounced 'through' sounded more similar to 'true', which instantly brought back a half forgotten and hidden memory of my grandmother.
I pulled some copper bits out of my vest pocket and handed them over to the guard, who placed them inside a locked chest via a small slot cut into the top. A small notation was made into a book and we were waved through.
The floor of the tunnel was a curiously smooth black stone that almost looked like it had been poured down as a liquid, while the walls and roof were more rounded and were a mixture of brown and white as if it were made of irregular brown blocks and smoothly joined with a white cement. We hadn't gone far before Karalin's fussing made me realise that she and the horses needed some sort of light source to see, despite the fact that the tunnel was extremely straight and the floor was without raised portions that could trip the horses. I pulled my staff out and used it to cast Light, the end glowing with my black light that proved sufficient for both Karalin and the horses. Near to the gate there was a section of the wall that had been smoothed off as a square on either side of the tunnel. The one on our left had the number 'one' painted upon it and the one on the right had the number 'ten' painted. The tunnel was huge and we were able to overtake the two groups of merchants that were ahead of us easily. We passed some other travellers heading the opposite direction on occasions. We had gone on for quite a way before we came across another set of numbers, with 'two' on the left and 'nine' on the right. This part of the tunnel also included a sort of extension carved out of the rock wall on our left. It was large enough to park a couple of carts and still have room to lay out the mattresses of twenty people. When we eventually came across a 'three' and 'eight' we guessed that the numbers were counting up to ten on the left and counting down from ten on the right, perhaps to let us know how far we had gone and how far to go? We ate when we got hungry and drank when we were thirsty, but had no idea what time it was. The 'four' stop also had an alcove carved out and I asked Karalin if she was tired enough to rest up, but she suggested that we continue past the halfway mark. When we reached the 'six' stop, with its corresponding alcove, I prayed to Tenebrae to Know Time and kicked myself that I had not done it when I had awoken in Easthaven, for immediately the knowledge that Celestine had just set and Luna was rising entered my mind along with the fact that it was definitely the 30th Day of Late Summer in the year 768 n.c.
We ate a small dinner and set ourselves up for the night, however before we could fall asleep we were disturbed by the arrival of a merchant group heading towards Carn. They set up camp without much fuss and were considerate enough not to make much noise, we both slept lightly however.
