Chapter 14

From Toreas

Exhausted he pulled himself onto land for the second time in one day. Eric was too exhausted to be really angry. If he could have been, he would have been angry at the mercenaries, at Zara, at the king, the world in general and that damn wet, cold ocean.

At the moment though he was breathing heavy and enjoying the tranquil moment of not having to struggling against the currents of the ocean swimming far enough away from the shore to not be crushed against the cliffs and not too far out to be drifting further out to sea. With the darkness of the night now complete, he had only the stars and the moon to guide him and it wasn't exactly calm on the sea either so he could have taken his bearings in peace. The waves had tossed him around and he coughed up seawater more than once.

His muscles were starting to cramp. Thankfully the cold numbed him to most of his pain from that and all the other bruises he must have by now. The collection was growing steady. Now he could get a day or two of rest soon though.

Looking back, Eric saw a few lights of Lionor in the distance. No ships were set out after him, that was a good sign right there. Maybe they even thought him dead, but Eric did not believe to be that lucky. After having seen the rage the king was in, he would have some guards look for him in the least.

Rubbing his arms and stretching his legs, he looked away from the ocean and at the swamp in front of him. It was a short distance north of Lionor, but nobody ever entered it. The rumor was a terrible monster lived in it and ate everyone that tried to cross it. So travelers gave it a wide berth. Since the monster seemed to content by just eating the occasional stranger that wandered into it's lair and it did not seem to leave the swamp ever, nobody thought it to be necessary to go look for it.

It was amazing to Eric how a few well placed and fueled words could ensure people would not enter a place. The inhabitants of Lionor did not know that any animal in the swamp was harmless to humans. The worst of it were the leeches you might collect. He was probably the most dangerous thing in the entire swamp at the moment.

What really killed some people that were too nosy, were the traps that were laid in rings around the center of the swamp. Many were at the waterline and practically invisible, but some also hung from trees, being deadly in nature and almost always overlooked. Why people never looked up escaped Eric completely. He looked up more than down when he was anywhere with large things around him, be it a city or a forest. It was unlikely something from the ground was jumping up and hitting you in the head. In cities you had often tiled roofs where a tile could kill you if it fell on you. And in forests there were other things that also could end your life rather quickly from above.

He managed to get upright and instantly felt a lot of little cuts and bruises come to live. His escape over the roofs and walls of Lionor was not without physical consequences. It probably would be a lot worse once he was warm again. The cramping muscles protested but at least he could move them enough to get on with his journey. Trying to ignore the already aching body he slid back into the water behind the sand bank he had rested on and moved towards his destination in the middle of the swamp.

A few well hidden windpipes chimed and clattered in the soft winds. Anybody who was already primed with the stories about this place would suspect ghosts or the monster on the prowl after hearing those sounds. Knowing what it was, Eric thought, did not change the fact that it jarred on his nerves a little. He was in a foul mood. Tired, hungry and worst of all unarmed was no state to be in for him. After those he barely registered cold and injured.

It took him a while to carefully progress to the center, without stumbling into one of the traps. He knew where most of them were or at least what warning signs there were for a trap. After all he had helped put a lot of them into place. One of them, a rather nasty trap, hanging from a tree, he had to activate as he did not see how he could get around it. A large log of wood swung down from the tree, with a lot of spikes driven through it and almost hit him although he thought he was far enough away. He staid still until the log stopped swinging wildly. Many people were not killed by the first swing of a trap, but when it swung back.

Still in one piece, he arrived at the small dirt hill in the center of the swamp, with its long grass growing all over it and a large trunk of a dead tree sticking out in the middle of it. Tired he slumped on one of the large roots of the dead tree and let out a sigh. He rapped his knuckles against the trunk.

"Open up, it's me."

Silence.

Eric inspected the plants growing beside the trunk. A small trail of smoke came out among them, faint but visible if you knew what to look for. Again he knocked on the dead wood of the trunk.

"It's Eric, I can see you're here. Open up!"

A piece of the bark peeled away and then swiveled out from the tree on a hinge. Behind it a small, dark skinned, old man peer out at him. His expression changed from inquisitive to a large smile when he recognized the young man.

"My, why didn't you say so boy? I wasn't expecting you."

The man vanished down the hole behind him.

"I wasn't expecting myself", Eric muttered and followed the man, pulling the hidden door close behind him and locking it in place.

Outside it was relatively easy to see with the night sky lit up and few large tree's to block it out. Inside the tree it was pitch black. A faint glow was visible down the hole. Carefully he took the steps deeper into the hill to join his friend in his home. It also was a lot warmer than outside.

Ducking under the door frame, he entered the main room of the underground dwelling. Dutifully he closed the door behind him then looked around.

The ceiling was a bit higher after the door but he still couldn't stand up fully. A fact that his host did not bother in the least as he was more than a head smaller. It wasn't really spacious, but warm. A table with two small stools stood in the middle, a small stove to one side and shelves with pieces of paper and other materials in them covered the walls. There were three more rooms, one for sleeping and two for storage, behind thick curtains that functioned as doors. The entire construction was wood, with some stone added around the stove. A small kettle bubbled on the stove, a few candles lit the room and some papers were scattered over the table.

"Why did you not use one of the floats? I showed you where they are, yes?"

The man's age was clearly visible on a few wrinkles on his dark face. Southerners never got too many wrinkles, Eric thought and wondered why that was. He had come to Lionor to work for the king. His friends story why he ended up in this hideout was just another reason why Eric did not trust nobles. Having brushed up against the king personally now, he could see why the old man was not successful with offering his services to the man.

"I came in from the other side."

"But the other side is...", the man paused and looked closer at Eric and the puddle that formed under him. "Oh. Pray tell why?"

"Mind if I shed my clothes first? It's pretty cold in the water."

The man shook his hand and turned towards the stove.

"Go ahead."

Thankful, Eric began to remove his clothing. His ride of the river had left a few ugly bruises and he had collected a few more of those together with scraps and cuts on his escape over the roofs of the capital.

"I was in Lionor and then had to leave the city rather quickly. Jumping from the walls into the ocean near the port gates was the only way I could think of."

"Then we have something in common my friend."

The new voice surprised Eric. He spun, clasping for his dagger in it's usual position before he realized he did not have it anymore. He only felt the wet cloth of the simple pants he wore under his fingers.

A man had appeared silently. Only the faint movement of the curtain to the sleeping chamber showed where he had come from.

He looked like a monk with his gray robe. It seemed to be made of wool and looked darker in some areas where the cloth folded. Out in the darkness he would be invisible. His face bore a white full beard, shortly trimmed just below the chin, and long white hair that flowed over his shoulders and were neatly cut off there as well. He had not met many monks, but this one seemed to be careful about his grooming. In the hard face that looked at him he could see a faint smile, but his eyes were trying to drill into his mind. The man was taller than the owner of the dwelling but still smaller than Eric. A simple belt with a small dagger and a pouch were the only other things he noticed.

For some reason Eric had the feeling to be in the presence of someone who was very dangerous without having seen any evidence of danger. The hairs at the back of his neck prickled a little.

"Who's that, Galro?", Eric demanded.

The small southerner looked between the two.

"This is Shimon, Eric. My oldest friend in all of Toreas and he has saved my life more than once." He turned to the older man and gestured at Eric. "I told you about my friend Eric before, well, this is him."

"I thought as much. A pleasure to meet you Eric", the man introduced as Shimon said and gave a small nod.

Standing there wet, bruised, exhausted, half-naked and unarmed did not make him feel any better, but he trusted Galro Kardo, or he wouldn't have come here. If he said the man is a friend, that was good enough for him. At least for the moment. Besides he was too worn out to care much right now What bothered him though was that Galro had talked about him to this man and he had never heard of him in return before.

"Please, sit down, I would like to hear about your journey", Shimon said.

Eric disposed of the last of his clothing and Galro brought him a blanket. It was scratchy and his bruises flared up, but he preferred the warmth it provided over the pain at the moment. Then he sat down on the second small stool in the room. Shimon just sat down on the floor, which surprised Eric, while Galro preferred to stand.

"Why don't you start first then?" Eric suggested. Something was odd about this man.

"Very well. I arrived here not long before you. In fact we were about to share some of the more interesting bits of news with each other when we heard your knocking on the door. Galro here was afraid someone might have followed me."

Galro was very careful and protective of his home. There was a good reason why he was hidden and did not live in the city or any other place.

"So what news?"

"Well it appears as if princess Zara has been kidnapped. I heard that she no longer is at the summer castle and she has not arrived at the capital either, although she should have been there for maybe two months or so already. Our mutual friend is concerned."

Shimon looked at Galro.

"Yes, very bad. The king has been angry for weeks now. This will provoke actions that otherwise could be prevented."

"I don't know exactly what you two talk about here, but the princess her royal highness Zara of Lionor is back in that lump of rocks over there they call a city."

Eric made a throwing away gesture in the general direction of said lump, to accompany his words full of scorn. He definitively was spending too much time with the southerner who pretty much gestured whenever he said something.

"Really? She was not there when I left and you seem to know about this, then I take it, you had something to do with this?" Shimon asked.

"Yes, unfortunately. I delivered her stubborn ungrateful and obviously deaf behind, back to the castle. And as thanks the king wanted to put me in the dungeon, to teach me the proper respect."

"You saw the princess captured somewhere and decided to rescue her?"

"No, it was a bit different actually."

Eric explained how he found her in that sack after defeating the mercenaries that had plundered in the area. Shimon asked a few pointed questions as to how he defeated them and Eric showed the man in the monk robes the armor piece that Galro had made. He explained how they made their way across the country, evaded the mercenaries a couple of times and then how they crossed the plains, until they took a swim in the river.

"No wonder you look like a beaten dog. That river isn't meant for swimming boy."

"Thanks Galro, I figured as much when the rocks sheared of my belt and took my weapons in one moment, then almost sliced me open the next. We were desperate and there was no better way in sight."

Eric sighed deeply.

"Anyways, we arrived in Lionor and went to the castle. She dropped me in the clutches of her female henchmen which forced a bath on me and these useless clothes. Then I met the king. He was pretty irritated and that irked me as well from the beginning. The king wanted to make me a lesser lord of some kind and I refused. He also didn't like it when I called the princess by her first name without using her title. He got really angry and decided I should learn manners by being in his dungeons for a while. I fled, made it out of the city by the way of the ocean and now I'm here."

Shimon nodded.

"Why did you refuse? Most people would think this is the fulfilling of their dreams."

"Well, I have different dreams then I guess. I don't like nobility and I don't want to be one of them."

"And why is that?"

Eric looked at Galro and the small man nodded. If Galro trusted him that much, then he could tell his story.

"I killed one of them. My caretaker had died not long before that. I was in the closest city to where he died. A local noble raped a girl in an alley and when she committed the bad crime to fight back, he killed her. I came to the whole thing just as she fought him back, kicked him a couple times and could only watch as he stabbed her, over and over. With my own dagger, I attacked him. I wounded him as well and then a guard came along. When the guard yelled, the noble was distracted and I killed him. Later I heard that the guard thought I killed both, the girl and the noble. Apparently, I had raped the girl and the noble had died a hero trying to save her. Since then I don't trust nobles nor guards for that matter. Every noble I have seen or heard of so far thinks they are something better than anyone else while most of them are just vile creatures. I'd rather die than become one of them, ever."

"Interesting. So the king offered you the only reward you would not accept. He was getting angry at you for being disrespectful to his daughter and to him for refusing his generous offer. Normally he would maybe have been a bit peeved, but he was already on edge because his daughter had been missing and I think I have made it worse with my visit."

"Yes, that is pretty much it. I just got more and more angry at the situation that I even snapped at Zara for being so boneheaded. But you mentioned we had something in common about leaving the city fast."

"The king took a dislike to being told what to do. He shares that sentiment with many nobles. But I thought he knew better. Alas I was wrong and he told me to leave. I did so at once, while the sun was just about coming up. He had a change of heart as soon as I wasn't standing in front of him anymore and ordered me captured. For that they had to find me first though. I escaped the city in a much drier way in the early afternoon."

"I was wondering why those guards were looking at people leaving the city so intently, so they were looking for you."

"That might very well be, yes."

Shimon rubbed his chin and seemed to look into a distance that wasn't there.

"The king always had a bit of a temper, but he usually reigns it in quite well. With his daughter vanished and nobody knows where to, he became undone and started to make snap decisions. The first hangings of his reign have happened not a week ago. He even rallied forces to attack neighboring countries, because he heard about some of them being involved in his daughters disappearance."

The old mans gazed focused again on Eric.

"I believe that this was the goal of her abduction and they reached it. The entire plan though might have been to kill her and make it look like someone from the south did it, while she tried to escape or when they squabbled about her. Either way, the larger question remains who did this and what are they hoping for in the grand scheme of things. Meanwhile the king is rash and decided to use your perceived disrespect as convenient way to get rid of some of his frustration and anger. While I have agitated him, he was already in a bad state when I got there to begin with. If I have made it worse for you, then I apologize to you and hope you don't hold it as a grudge against me."

Eric tilted his head slightly and looked over to Galro.

"Is he for real? Did he just apologize for the king being a twit?"

"No boy. He apologized for his actions that might have made the king more of a.. twit, as you put it."

The young man nodded to himself.

"I don't hold grudges like that. The king decided to act on his own behalf, there is no need for an apology."

The white haired man nodded towards him, in what almost looked like a bow.

"So you had quite the little adventure with the heir to the throne."

"You could say that. We made it to the city, barely. And I lost all my belongings and almost my freedom as well."

He looked over to his friend who had been quiet the entire time.

"Do you have some clothes I could borrow, maybe a dagger?"

Galro shook his head.

"I'm sorry, but I think you will have to do with those clothes for the time being. But I can lend you money to actually buy something."

"Yes but I don't think it would be a good idea to show up in Lionor. I will have to go somewhere else get some clothes and weapons again."

"I would like to offer an alternative, which is one of the reasons I actually I came here for."

Eric focused his attention again on the older man.

"I'm listening."

"I travel a lot and I could use some help from someone with your abilities. You managed to bring the princess from the middle of nowhere safe to Lionor. Then you escaped the throne room of king and ultimately the city. If Galro would not have told me about you before, I would have made you the offer now anyways."

The southerner was furrowing his brow. He was thinking, and not entirely liking what he was thinking. Eric caught the expression on Galro's face and wondered what that was about.

"So I'd be your body guard? Servant?"

"Travel companion. The things I do require me to be in two places at once sometimes and you can imagine how hard that might be to accomplish."

Eric nodded. A second later his stomach growled.

"Your body speaks louder than your words, boy. Here have some soup."

Galro gave him a bowl and set the spoon next to him on the table.

"Eat up, you must be starving."

With only a short "thanks", Eric started shoveling food into his mouth. His friend was right, he was starving. It's been days since he had a proper meal and all that swimming and running away had taken a lot of his strength.

"Think about my offer Eric. We can talk about it more tomorrow. For now I think you need some sleep."

Shimon looked at him with a smile. It was an odd smile Eric thought, but he was too tired to think much more. All his strength was seeping out of him the more food and warmth entered his body. Eric just nodded and went into the sleeping chamber. He dropped on the floor in one corner and instantly fell asleep.

He usually woke fast and easy. This time he very slowly crawled out from under the blanket of sleep that was clouding his mind. His mouth felt like something small and furry had crawled in there and died a week ago. Mouse was his first guess, after moving his tongue, his guess corrected to rat. With effort he opened his eye lids. It was dark as usual in the sleeping chamber and a soft light shone under the heavy curtain that acted as a door. There were two voices, Galro with the heaviness of the south and Shimon that Eric would have guessed to be some city dweller by the way he talked. Someone learned, a monk maybe, or even a noble possibly.

Then the rest of his body woke up. Every muscle, every bit of skin and all his bones seemed to be bruised, strained or otherwise in a bad shape. He had rough mornings and his fair share of injuries, but short of an open wound, this was the worst of it yet. He made himself a promise to never rescue a princess again. Not worth the trouble.

Keeping the blanket around himself, as much for warmth as for modesty, he stepped up to the curtain. The two men looked rested and were standing over some papers on the table. They kept their voices low but it was clear that both were excited about what they were looking at and together they seemed to unravel whatever those papers were telling them.

Eric was certain he made no sound and it was impossible to see through the curtain from the lit main room into the dark sleeping room. Still Shimon looked up and directly to where Eric was standing.

"I hope we did not wake you. Are you rested Eric?"

He pushed the curtain aside and entered the room. The clothes he came with were laying on the ground next to the stove, they probably would be dry now. He didn't think of them as his clothes and it bothered him that he would have to wear them.

"Not really. But I feel better in general. I'm just discovering new body parts that I didn't know I possessed just because they hurt."

"Pain is a fast but harsh teacher."

"I think I learned the lesson by now."

Galro set him a bowl of stew on the table.

"Could have died. You were a very lucky one this time."

"My choice was very limited Galro. Certain imprisonment on one hand or taking my chances with flight on the other. I prefer trying than accepting the failure right away. And I certainly wasn't letting some noble tell me what to do."

"He's almost as thickheaded as you are, old friend. Hope you wont get him killed", Galro said to Shimon who watched Eric intently.

"Have you thought about my offer?"

"Yes. I want to know more before I agree, but in general, I don't see a problem working for you. We both wont be able to go anywhere near Lionor for a while and as long as you have the coin to pay me and ask nothing that I won't do, I see no problem."

"What do you want to know?"

"Well, you just walk around and share rumors with old men? Or what is it that you do?"

Galro snickered in the corner.

"What is so funny?"

"He wont believe me if I say it, could you please, Galro?"

"Certainly. Boy, you are sitting in the presence of a real wanderer."

Telling kings what to do. Traveling a lot. It suddenly made sense. He had been very tired yesterday but even alert and well fed, he wouldn't have made that leap.

"I thought wanderers were a myth, you know, like a story."

"Yes, wanderers are a story, like the metal road, the slave warriors, the green pyramid, the forbidden land and many more. Just because there are stories told about somethings doesn't mean they are not real."

"Fine, say I believe you are a wanderer. So what, you walk around and tell kings how they best live in the spirit of the ancients? And you can change the weather, call up firestorms, shoot lightning from your hands, command any army in the world? Bring people to justice that have escaped the usual authorities?"

"Yes. But not all of that."

Shimon shifted his position a little to lean forward.

"Wanderers are here to create a certain balance in the world. Everyone makes mistakes, including rulers of large kingdoms. We give advice but on occasion also use more direct actions remove a ruler from a position of power, in case the advice is not heeded or simply ignored and the people that are being ruled are suffering under that person. If along the way we come across a large injustice we try to right that as well. And we keep our eyes and ears open for larger threats to the world or large groups in general."

"That would explain why nobody has heard of wanderers. All of you people are either dead or stuck in one place or another trying to fix the world."

"Not really, but this is all just a part of what I do. You see I have come across something very troublesome."

The old man pointed at the papers strewn across the table.

"They are part of a document called the book of keys. It has been written by the ancients that survived to hide the location of a powerful place they only call the tower. After the book was written, the pages were split between many different people who took them into many different places to preserve the secret of the tower."

"But there is a problem."

"Yes, of course there is. It's incomplete. I have spent a lot of time looking for all the pages but I'm still missing six. Without having all pages it is impossible to find the keys and then the keys together with the book will reveal the location of the tower."

"And you want me to help you find those pages and the keys."

"Yes."

"To what end? What does this tower do?"

The old man smiled.

"Galro has told me you are smart, I'm glad to see he was right. What exactly is in the tower is unknown, but the texts speak of knowledge and power."

"Books and weapons."

"Maybe. It was built long before the impact and the ancients that survived thought it best to seal it up and hide it's existence. If it was of any use to them, I don't think they would have done it. It is more likely that the power they speak of might have been something different. I just don't know what."

"And what is it you want with it?"

"Knowledge, my young friend. I could do a lot more good with more knowledge."

"The power wouldn't hurt either, hm?"

"If I wanted to be in power of something I would be. I have dethroned kings and set someone new in their place a few times. If this was what I wanted, I could have taken the place, but this is not my purpose. If this power can be used to the good of the people, then I might do so, yes."

Eric looked at his friend standing next to the stove.

"What's your opinion about all this? Is he good for his word?"

"He has saved my life and I trust him fully with it Eric. If Shimon tells you he does something, he will do it to the best of his abilities."

"So if he get's access to that tower, he wont go crazy and try to rule the world?"

Galro chuckled.

"If he wanted to do that, I think he could have by now."

"Don't tell him everything, my friend. He has to learn some things on his own."

The southerner nodded.

"Fair enough. But he needs to know you are to be trusted. If Eric wont trust you, he won't be able to really help you."

"Yes he does. And I'm right here."

"My apologies. Yes you need to trust me, but I think I can only earn your trust over time. For now you just have to trust the word of your friend here and mine."

That was a hard one, Eric thought. He needed some money and it was better than borrowing from Galro who himself had just enough to survive. Even though his friend seemed to have an unusual trust towards this stranger, there was some suspicion in his own mind. What would happen when they found the tower? Would he really not take over the world?

"How come nobody else has heard of this before?"

"Oh everyone has. There are countless stories about books, scrolls and towers, about the knowledge they hold, the power they can grant. But they are all fragments of that one book. I have collected a few of these pages over the years and just recently put it all together with the help of a very old legend. And if I can do it, others might be able to do it as well. Some of the pages have been destroyed over time, but they were copied before that could happen. So someone else might be able to find this tower as well. If they do, there might be grave danger for the entire world."

"You are telling me you intend to save the world."

"More or less."

"Fine, I'll join you. Either you are right and need all the help you can get or you are too crazy to be left walking about all alone. At least until I have decided which one it is, I'll be your travel companion."

Shimon looked at the snickering Galro.

"What is it?"

"Nothing, but I have never seen someone peg you so quickly before. Very funny."

Shimon waved it off and turned to Eric again.

"I'll be heading north into the mountains next. I got word that one of the pages has surfaced in a city there."

"Good, any direction works as long as it's away from here. What do you pay?"

"Three silver so you can buy clothes and whatever else you need. After that one silver for each month you stay with me. Agreed?"

They shook hands on it and for some reason, Eric felt a slight tingle go up his spine as Shimon smiled at him.