“From what I understand, he’s a pretty tough ranger. I hear that he and old one-eye were neophytes together up in the Gamboge Forest, and that’s where he took to being a scout and spy. I suppose Gellor’s influence got to him.”
Now Gord was thoroughly puzzled. “What was Gellor doing with druids? You lost me somewhere.”
“Oh, that’s simple,” Chert assured him. “Gellor is a bard. Haven’t you ever heard him sing? He’s got a pretty fair voice and plays the harp real good!”
“A bard has something to do with druidical studies?”
“That’s what Curley told me,” said the barbarian.
Gord let it go at that, figuring that he would learn more from Curley Greenleaf… if they ever met him again. He and his big companion rode fast in an attempt to catch up with the druid, hoping that they could make up his one-day head start before he got to his destination and headed off on another tangent. If he decided to employ his power to travel magically, neither Gord nor Chert thought they would ever locate Curley before he went off to find the megalithic ruin he was seeking.
The rotund druid was indeed traveling by conventional means. With Mauve Castle about one day’s ride ahead, they did catch up with him at a roadside tavern, and the three reunited adventurers spent the night there. After they greeted each other and settled down at a table in the tavern, Gord and Chert were finally able to learn just what Greenleaf was questing after.
“I have heard in old epics,” he told them, “that there was a place of great power in the Abbor-Alz, and the Archdruid of Celadon allowed me to read an ancient tablet he possesses. That gave me a clue as to where the place was and what it looked like, so I went to my old friend Iquander. He was able to dig up most everything else I needed to know.”
“That’s fine, Curley,” Gord said sarcastically, “but how about telling
“Great idea, Gord!” chimed in the barbarian. “Come on, lay it out for us, Greenleaf, or we’ll thump it out of you.”
“Not here,” the druid said seriously. “Too many ears to pick up something as important as what I have to tell you. Let’s find a wench to serve us supper, and afterward we can retire to our chambers and talk. I’ll explain it all then.”
Both young men grumbled, but there was nothing to do but go along with Curley’s plan. He wouldn’t say anything in the common room of the tavern and wouldn’t go elsewhere until he’d eaten. Chert said he was famished-and he did consume vast quantities of chow at every opportunity-and Gord was also feeling pangs of hunger, so they nodded acceptance of Curley’s terms and ordered a meal. Soon the three were busily demolishing a roast capon, some egg and mutton-kidney pie, and various and sundry comestibles delivered in stages by the serving woman. Finally, after the last bones were stripped bare of meat, the pie dish clean, and nothing but a few crumbs of bread to be seen on the table, Greenleaf sat back patting his round belly and Chert belched contentedly as he swigged down another pot of stout. Gord, having finished much sooner than his two companions, had been waiting impatiently for this event.
“If you two gundiguts have finally stopped stuffing yourselves,” he said, “I think it high time we went upstairs so that Chert and I can learn the real meat of our chase halfway across the Flanaess!”
Still beaming with happiness at his repletion, the druid nodded and arose, leading the way to the rooms they had taken above.
“There is a great ring of stones,” Curley began, as they sat in the small parlor adjoining the three bedrooms. “It is near here, within the mountains which split Cairn Hills from Abbor-Alz. There is a hidden valley there, a circular place which is unnatural. Steep walls ring a level plateau, and this ground, in turn, is hemmed by monoliths. Seven circles of different sorts of stones, there are. The size of the stones grows larger as the rings progress inward, from liths no bigger than a milestone to huge ones taller than a giant. These seven rings of stone encircle a cairn at the center. It is that which we must enter and explore!”
“What is inside?” asked Gord. “Gold? Gems?” Chert, not much interested in tales of worthless rocks, perked up at these last two words.
“I think not,” Greenleaf answered slowly, and Chert looked bored again. “But there is possibly something of far greater worth within the barrow… a relic.”
“What sort of relic?” Gord queried.
“What’s a relic?” demanded the barbarian.
“A relic is something ancient, usually of great power, and often associated with the divine in some manner,” the druid explained. “More than that I’m not prepared to say at this time.”
“What’s the sense of going there if there’s no money in it?”
“Chert, my friend, there is more to life than money and fighting,” Greenleaf said with a wry shake of his head.
“There’s
Gord laughed at this, but Curley’s response was serious. “No, no. But the relic-if there is one-would have value beyond belief. Should we actually find one and manage to get it into the right hands, you’ll both be rewarded with enough money to keep you happy for years-even at the rate you two young rogues spend the stuff!”
That was heartening talk indeed. Searching for this hidden ruin was making a whole lot of sense now. Gord and Chert expressed their eagerness to get going as early as possible.
“Well, there are a few preparations I must make first,” the druid cautioned. “Spells, if you don’t know it, require more than a few mumbling incantations and a wave of the hand, after all.”
“What do we need spells for?” demanded the massive barbarian. “We’ve got swords!”
“If we find a relic, my boy, then we will certainly have to contend with whoever-or whatever-guards it. And such a guardian will require more than brute force, even strength such as yours, to overcome. If we are clever, and lucky too, we should be able to survive its attacks, destroy it, and bear our prize home in triumph!”
Greenleaf would say no more on the subject of the relic or its fearsome guardian, whatever that might be, despite the young men’s wheedling and demanding. Curley bade them to remain patient a bit longer, assuring both that he would apprise them fully, in due time, of just what they were seeking and what they might encounter along the way.
“After all,” he explained, “a slip of the tongue now could alert others as to what we seek, and there’s no need for a contest of getting there first-or having to fight off others after we’ve taken the prize.” Gord and Chert agreed to the sense of this approach, and retired to their chambers for the night.
Next day all three went on to the town of Mauve Castle, and therein the druid went about gathering whatever he needed for his coming work. After spending the following night in the Manticore’s Tail, the trio set forth on their adventure, riding south and west toward the mountains.
Chapter 28
If the Abbor-Alz was a place where horses could not easily venture, the mountainous head of this area was far worse. The three riders took a southerly route along the edge of the jutting peaks that rose abruptly from the relatively level plain to the east. The entire chain was only some fifty miles long, and about half as wide, but the upthrust bluffs and craggy peaks were an impenetrable wall. Perhaps determined mountaineers could ascend these great mountains and descend on the other side, but no regular traffic, muleback or even afoot, could find a route through them.
Gord wondered out loud why they were riding along the edge in such fashion when it was obvious that they would have to proceed afoot eventually. It would have been better, he suggested, to have left their valuable steeds in some safe stable and have gone on shank’s mare.
The druid assured Gord that he knew what he was doing, and he told both men to keep a sharp eye out for a small tor shaped like an ogre. Chert’s keen gaze spotted this unusual-looking mountain late in the forenoon. It was quite as Curley had described it, once you knew what you were looking for and viewed it from the north. The rough, rocky ground near its base was forbidding, as were the clumps of scrub thorn that sprang from the poor soil between the mineral outcroppings.
