“Not a Trycadian wizard,” I sniffed haughtily. “A Gyltari, perhaps
a Kordanian. Evil and wizardry are
common in both kingdoms. Why?”
Rolglor sighed. “To hunt a wolf, you must know it. The mountain
wolves act differently from the ones in the woods.” I nodded in understanding
as he cautiously stepped into a hallway.
I will spare you the step-by-step search of the keep. Suffice it
to say my new barbarian hero was a finely trained hunting dog. He tracked the
goblins through the stony keep, and I’ve no idea how he could have done it,
lest he smelled them.
Skeptically, I followed him. Down halls, through rooms, and to a
stairwell. That basement level was dark, and we returned to a room with a
blazing hearth, where we seized a burning piece of firewood to use as a torch.
Then we continued down.
We were walking through a hall down there, when we turned a corner
and saw a light through an open door ahead of us. Rolglor turned to me, raised
one finger to his lips indicating quiet, and tip-toed to the door.
Being the smart one, I remained at the corner, with the torch.
From my vantage point, I saw him creep stealthily to that doorway and peer
inside. Then he began to tremble with rage, and charged in with his sword high.
That was when the screams began.
Obviously, a heroic deed such as this is meaningless without a
witness to verify it. This is why I trod
softly down that dark hall and looked into the room.
It was not a very large room. Boxes and debris were crowded by the
walls, a statue stood in the center of the room on a squat pedestal.
There were goblins there, but not the goblins I was expecting! I
expected the stout green goblins known to wander the Engatharian steppes.
Instead, these were thin, red-skinned devils from the cursed Yzaruam deserts.
Their scimitars flashed dangerously in the lights of those long brass teapots
the Yzari call lamps.
There were three of them, and one was bleeding on the floor by the
time I arrived. “Yoo-man, you die now!”
But he didn’t, of course! No, he parried and dodged, thrusted and
feinted, and all those other things that swordsmen do. In frustration, one
goblin threw his lamp into the fray. The oil splashed onto the barbarian’s
tunic and caught fire. He didn’t seem to notice, but the goblins’ eyes went
wide in terror.
“You spilled Holgonn blood!” he cried amid hacks and slashes,
felling another goblin so only one remained.
“You no keep me from cellar! We find statue’s secret!” the red
goblin snarled at him, “The princess is mine!”
The barbarian let out a mighty roar, and ran his sword through the
goblin’s chest. The Yzari devil choked
on a cry, fell to his knees, then off the sword and to the floor. Rolglor stood over him, glaring down at the
body for a moment. Then the flames licked at his face and he rushed to remove
the baldric and the thick flaming tunic.
“Did you hear the goblin’s words, story-man?” he cried as he
slipped the baldric over his head again. “There IS a princess here!”
“Yes, I also heard something about the statue having a secret.”
He frowned at the small stone figure critically. He stroked his
cheeks like some smart men do when lost in thought. It was a crude little
statue, of a warrior with fists on hips, standing perhaps four feet tall. At
last he said, “Well, I see no words carved on the statue or the stand.”
I nodded and realized it was time for a little nudge. “Didn’t that
goblin say something about a cellar? Here I thought we were in the cellar!”
The barbarian nodded blandly for a moment. Then his head jerked
back in my direction, with eyes and grin wide as they could go. “Aha! Perhaps
it’s like a pit trap!”
On the inside I was smiling, on the outside I frowned. “What?”
“A pit trap!” he enthused. “You dig a pit, cover it with branches,
then an animal comes along and falls in!”
With just the right dubious tone I asked, “You think this statue
is covering some way down to a deeper floor?”
“Yes I do!” he cried as he looked over the statue again, this time
with an eye towards moving it. He grabbed the statue’s shoulders and heaved, muscles
straining, and grunting with effort.
One side of the pedestal rose shakily from the floor. The
barbarian grunted some more, pushed some more, and tipped the statue so it was
dangerously balanced on one edge of its stand.
I rushed over and looked. “You were right! There is a shaft here,
and a rope!” The rope was tied around a
wide stone ring, attached to the bottom of the pedestal. The rope itself was
knotted every foot or so, to make climbing easier.
The statue fell over and landed on the stony floor with a loud
thud. He panted and rubbed his arms as he looked at the shaft beneath the
statue. He took the torch from me, his sweat glistening in its light, and
dropped it down the shaft.
“We must hurry,” he said as he sat on the lip of the shaft, “The
goblins are sure to have heard that.” Then he reached for the rope and froze
still. “What is that?” he asked, pointing at the hand of one of the dead
goblins.
I looked and saw the gleam, also. I crossed over for a closer
look. “It is a ring.” I plucked it from
the goblin’s finger and examined it in the light of the burning tunic. “There is writing on it. ‘The Ring of Truth
Shatters…’” Then, on the inside, “…’The Fragile Glass of Lies’. Hmm, wonder
what that means?”
“Who cares? Hand it here.” said Rolglor. I gave him the ring and
he slipped it onto his finger. “Come along, story-man! We must be getting
close!” Then he shimmied down the rope, quick as a blink.
Once we got to the bottom, there was no trick to deciding which
way to go—there was only one hall to follow. It ended at a wide chamber, empty
of furniture, save a quartet of blazing braziers, one in each corner. In its
center was the woman.
Tall, shapely, statuesque. Long flowing hair, wearing jewelry on
her head, about her neck, on her wrists and ankles. She wore one of those funny
outfits, like a dancing girl in the court of some Yzari desert sheik.
Oh yes, Hazerium, she was imprisoned, of course! She was trapped
inside a giant shard of glass or ice that floated above a skull that was
inscribed with weird runes. She saw us as we entered, and pressed against the
transparent walls from within, screaming pleas at us that we could not hear.
“That must be the
princess!” Rolglor exclaimed as he rushed into the room. “She is trapped by the
magician!”
To Be Concluded...
