The air was still for the moment, and Gelbus’s courage came back to him. That, and his mouth was dry; very dry indeed. Not to mention at that point in the Gnome’s life, he didn’t particularly have a home.
He walked on.
The thunder continued to rumble in the distance, the storm growing ever closer. Gelbus saw no one else on the road for the rest of his journey, and not long after the last stroke of lightning had sent his heart plummeting to the pit of his stomach, he reached the gates of Ashbourne.
He had never been here before—at least, he didn’t remember it, if he had. Much of the last month was quite a blur for Gelbus. There were a million small villages like Ashbourne all over Oriceran; a million places with a million pubs that Gelbus had drowned his sorrows in. So, yes, he might’ve been here before. Does it matter? No, because this time, I won’t be drowning my sorrows alone. I’ll be with Elargo; how nice that will be!
No one was manning the gates. Gelbus did the polite thing and knocked three times, waited, then knocked some more. Nobody came.
Fishy, he mused.
An odd choice of words.
Perhaps it was the fishy smell in the air from Ashbourne’s black lake; he might’ve once known this fact about the town, when he was at the height of his knowledge and keeping the secrets of the world safe and locked away, but the brew had since flooded away much of that knowledge.
Lightning struck again. This time he thought he heard something roaring in the distance, after the brightness left the sky.
Frightened, Gelbus jumped straight into the gate, knocking his shoulder against the iron. It creaked rustily and opened.
“Well, I suppose I should enter,” he considered quietly, and then raised his voice. “Since someone isn’t doing their job!”
What was that pub’s name? Gelbus tried to remember as he entered the town. The Dancing Daemon? The Diligent Direwolf? Something silly.
He reached into his breast pocket and pulled the letter out. The dark sky seemed to open up, and exposed one of the two moons of Oriceran, allowing Gelbus to read his friend’s handwriting by its pale light.
“The Pickled Pepper!” he shouted. “Such a silly name.”
A drop of rain landed on his nose. He wrinkled it while he stuffed the letter back into his pocket. Then he looked up, noticing for the first time how abandoned the town of Ashbourne looked.
Must be the storm, he thought.
But as he looked around at the buildings on either side of the long, dirt road, he saw no torches in their windows. All of them were shuttered and dark.
I have a bad feeling about this. I should go back.
Gelbus was never one to linger if he had a bad feeling. That was one of the many things he’d picked up during in his long life. If you have a bad feeling about something, don’t push that intuition away. Life is too short for that, he could hear his mother cawing in the back of his mind.
He turned around to head back out of the gate. The man he had passed on his wagon suddenly seemed like the nicest thing in the entire world. Maybe I can catch up to him and offer him payment for shelter—
“Where do you think you’re going, friend?” a voice said from his right. The voice did not sound friendly or welcoming.
His heart skipped a beat.
Did the man from the tavern set me up when he gave me Elargo’s letter?
He looked out of the corner of his eye and saw a hooded figure slinking in the dark shadows of the gate. The figure’s eyes glowed a fiery orange in the darkness, like the last dying embers of a great fire.
“Oh, I-I-I must be in the w-wrong town,” Gelbus stammered.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” the man purred.
That bad feeling was rampant in Gelbus’s head. He thought about running, and then remembered how small his legs were. He wouldn’t get three steps before this man was on him. Best not to do that, he decided. Best not to upset or offend this man.
But those eyes…
In all of his studies, all the countless hours spent in the Light Elves’ kingdom, he had never heard of such a thing—a man’s eyes glowing like fire.
He’d heard of red eyes, yes; those were eyes one wanted to stay away from. Those were the eyes belonging to the Arachnids of the Dark Forest—a place one also wanted to stay away from, though Gelbus would’ve rather been there at this moment. At least he’d studied the Dark Forest and knew what to expect.
Gelbus stood a little straighter and put on his most polite face, which, given his Gnome-like features—the long nose, ridged brow, and beady eyes—wasn’t too polite at all.
“Forgive me, sir,” he said, “I must be going now.”
The stranger chuckled and stepped out of the shadows. As Gelbus saw the man’s face for the first time, his fear gripped him, rooting him to the spot.
This man did not look like a man at all. His face reminded Gelbus of melted candle wax, the skin burned and folded over; He wondered if the man had been in a horrible accident.
Then the man smiled. His teeth were mostly gone, but the few that were left crowded each other and seemed to be sharpened to fine points—the type of teeth normally seen on monsters and beasts, not men.
“I don’t believe you’re going anywhere, my friend. You’ve stumbled into our territory. When you’re under our skies, you belong to us.”
“I believe there’s been a misunderstanding,” Gelbus began, twiddling his thumbs. “I’ve only come to Ashbourne to meet a friend. His name is Elargo; do you know him?”
The man didn’t answer. His face went blank, as if his brain was shorting out. Gelbus was finding it increasingly harder to look this man in the eyes.
Suddenly, the man shook uncontrollably. It seemed
