The Temple of Elemental Evil

13

Despite a thorough search of the tower, the companions could find no way into the temple from the tower. They left it behind, hoping to find another entrance elsewhere. Outside, the sleet had turned to snow, although there wasn’t enough to coat the ground, yet.

“This snowfall seems unnatural,” Shirral muttered. “It never snows this late in the year.”

Shanhaevel had to agree with her, although he wasn’t sure if the eerie sensations crawling up his spine weren’t just from the temple itself.

The companions completed their journey around the perimeter of the temple, stopping at the front entrance again. It was well after dark, now.

“Damn,” Govin growled. “How do we get in?”

“We’ll never find it in the dark and snow,” Elmo said. “Let’s get away from here and camp somewhere out of the way. We’ll figure it out in the morning.”

Everyone was tired, cold, and hungry, so no one argued. The Alliance moved quickly along the path, the last vestiges of malevolence still whispering at the edge of their minds. Once the temple was out of sight, everyone’s spirits improved immensely. The sense of relief that washed over each of them was almost palpable. They had just moved back onto the trail after fetching their horses when Shanhaevel heard the sound of distant hoofbeats.

“Shh!” Shirral called from the rear. “I hear riders.”

“Get off the road!” Elmo commanded, turning his own horse and riding into the trees along the side of the path.

Shanhaevel wheeled his own mount and trotted into the cover of the forest. When he was several feet back under the boughs, he halted the horse and listened. Sure enough, from the direction of Nulb, the sound of galloping horses grew louder. A moment later, the sound ceased.

Shanhaevel called out to his hawk. Ormiel, are you there?

Yes, came a sleepy reply.

Fly to me.

“What happened to them?” Ahleage whispered fiercely. “Where’d they go?”

“I’m not sure,” Elmo replied. “Let’s wait a moment longer. I don’t want to run into any ambushes out here.”

A moment later, Ormiel swooped past Shanhaevel’s shoulder.

“Gods!” growled Ahleage, flinching as the bird shot past him. “What the hells was that?”

“Shh! It was just Ormiel,” the wizard whispered, smiling in the darkness. Men were riding this way. Find them.

I find, the hawk replied, flying off into the night.

“Tell your bird not to scare me like that anymore,” Ahleage huffed, hunching his shoulders.

“Did you send Ormiel ahead to scout for us?” Elmo asked.

“Yes. I told him to find the riders. Maybe he’ll see where they went.”

“Good idea. Let’s stay quiet and keep an eye and ear out.”

The group sat, waiting for Shanhaevel’s familiar to report. The silence was broken only by the falling snow pattering on the branches around them. After nearly ten minutes, Ormiel called out to Shanhaevel. Riders went into trees.

We are coming, Shanhaevel replied. “Ormiel found where they left the road,” he reported to the others.

“Let’s go, then,” Govin said.

As a group, they all moved back out onto the road.

Show yourself, the elf called, listening for the telltale sounds of the hawk. He caught sight of the bird perhaps forty yards ahead of them.

“Ormiel says the riders left the trail and entered the woods here,” Shanhaevel told the rest of the group as they approached the spot where the bird perched high in a tree.

When they reached this spot, they discovered a faint side trail that they had missed before leading off into the woods. Elmo hopped down and examined the ground for a moment.

“Yep, there are fresh tracks here. Hard to see in the dark, but with the snow, they’re discernable. This is where our visitors went.”

As the group turned off the main path and followed this side trail, the snow stopped, and the sky cleared as the clouds blew out. Shanhaevel pushed his hood back. Ormiel, are the riders nearby?

They went into a man-nest.

He relayed this information to the others.

After a short while, the path opened onto a clearing. In the middle sat a ramshackle farmhouse with an equally dilapidated barn behind it. No one seemed to be around. At that moment, Luna broke through a long fringe of cloud, bathing the clearing and the woods around in pale light. Celene, Luna’s blue little sister, was still hiding, though a deep blue fringe round a nearby cloud gave her away.

“Do you think they knew we were coming and are hiding?” Shirral asked, peering around.

Elmo shook his head. “Don’t know,” he replied. “But it looks like the tracks lead to the barn.”

Everyone looked where the man pointed to the ground. Fresh horse prints ran past the farmhouse and toward the doors of the barn.

“There’s no light inside,” Govin said. “They’re either hiding in there, or else they went somewhere else.”

“I’ll go check it out,” Ahleage said, dismounting. “Everybody stay here unless you hear me yell, then come running.”

Ahleage crept off in the darkness and was soon lost from sight.

“When he wants to disappear, he really disappears,” Shirral breathed.

“Let’s get back in the trees a little, out of sight,” Shanhaevel suggested. “Even if the thugs aren’t here, they may come back, and we don’t want to be sitting in the middle of the path when they do.”

The rest of the companions dismounted and led their horses a little way into the trees, tethering the mounts to low branches. They settled in to wait, listening to the dripping of the moisture from the melting snow on the tree branches.

Odd, thought Shanhaevel. The snow seems to come and go almost randomly. What could be causing that?

The last of the clouds disappeared, but the stars remained dull behind a thin haze. Even little Celene was little more than a blue blur trailing after Luna. The pale moonshadows had moved almost an arm’s length before Ahleage returned.

“There’s nobody in the farmhouse,” he reported, still keeping his voice low. “There are a bunch of horses in the barn, though.”

“Their horses are here, but they’re not?” Draga asked. “Where’d they go?”

“Don’t know,” the man answered. “But we can wait and find out. There are a few good hiding places around. We could even hide in the farmhouse.”

“Did Ormiel see where they went, by chance?” Elmo asked.

“I don’t know. I’ll ask.” Shanhaevel called to the hawk and posed Elmo’s question, but the bird merely repeated what it had said before, that the riders had entered the man-nest. “He seems to think they’re inside one of the buildings.”

“Well, they’re not,” Ahleage insisted. “I checked.”

“Maybe there is some sort of secret door,” Shirral offered, “a trapdoor that leads to a tunnel or something.”

“It’s possible,” Ahleage admitted. “I didn’t look around for anything like that.”

“So, what are we going to do?” Elmo asked.

“I like the idea of waiting,” Govin said, and Shanhaevel nodded in agreement.

“Yes,” the elf added, “we could set up a watch and see where they come from. I say some of us hide in the house, and we put some others out here, hidden in one of the good spots Ahleage mentioned.”

Everyone agreed to this plan, and it was decided that Govin, Elmo, and Draga would wait inside the house, while Shanhaevel, Shirral, and Ahleage would remain outside, hiding behind an old well that sat near the edge of the clearing but faced the barn.

“I’ve got spells that will be useful out here,” Shirral mentioned as the three of them made their way to the well. “Between the two of us, we should be able to surprise anyone coming into the clearing.”

“Right,” Shanhaevel said, squatting down behind the well and preparing to get comfortable. “Wherever they went, they won’t be glad to see us when they return.”

He stifled a long yawn with the back of his hand as his two friends found dry spots next to him. As the three of them sat there behind the well, Shanhaevel’s eyes grew heavy. No time for sleeping, he told himself, but the long day’s activities were wearing on him, and more than once he caught himself snapping his head back after nodding off. He rubbed his eyes and looked at both Shirral and Ahleage. They seemed to be fighting sleep as desperately as he. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea, after all, he thought. What are we hoping to learn from these brutes, anyway?

At that moment, the wizard heard a distant sound, as though a bolt had been thrown back. Ahleage and Shirral both heard it, too. They each sat forward, peering carefully around the base of the well toward the barn and farmhouse. There was no one there. There came another sound, a scraping, and voices that seemed to echo oddly in the night. Shanhaevel looked this way and that, peering carefully in all directions, but he could not see anyone at all.

The elf turned to his two friends and mouthed “Where?” to them. Ahleage could not see well enough to read the wizard’s lips, but Shirral shrugged her shoulder and gave him a look of confusion.

Ahleage suddenly rose, holding on to the side of the well and listening, then, his eyes wide, he dropped back down beside the druid, motioning for them to be still and quiet. Swallowing the lump in his throat, Shanhaevel froze in place, holding his breath and listening intently.

At that moment, a shadowy figure rose out of the well.

Hedrack scowled as he stared across the polished surface of his table at Falrinth, sitting on the opposite side. The high priest of the temple, the Mouth of Iuz, did not like what he was hearing from the wizard.

“You are sure,” Hedrack asked again, wanting no more confusion, “that they have been there?”

“As I said,” Falrinth repeated, recounting his tale to the armored priest. “When Grozdan did not visit me this evening as he should have, I sent Kriitch up to see what the trouble was. Through his eyes, I saw Grozdan and his men, all dead. Kriitch checked, and all of the men’s valuables had been removed as well. I did not see who did it, but my guess is that it’s the ones you have been looking for, although how they got past our spies in Nulb, I do not know.”

“Hmm,” Hedrack said, considering. The wizard was right, of course, although Hedrack hated making any assumptions. These meddlers Iuz had warned him of were growing irritating. The priest had expected to deal with them quickly and decisively—or rather, he had expected his underlings to deal with them quickly and decisively—and instead, they had been met with setback after setback. He had too many things on his mind and too many things for his commanders to deal with, to spare more time and effort on these mewling cretins who thought they might poke their nose into his plans, but it appeared that he had no choice.

“All right,” Hedrack said at last, looking at Falrinth again. “It is obvious that they are a bigger thorn in my side than I presumed. I will not underestimate them again. I want no more problems. Find them. Use your scrying magic to figure out where they are, then I will send Lareth to deal with them.”

“Of course,” Falrinth replied, nodding in acquiescence. “I will let you know as soon as I discover their whereabouts.”

The wizard rose to leave, drawing his heavy robes about him.

“What have you learned from the key?” Hedrack said, stopping the wizard in his tracks. “Have you determined yet how we may use it?”

“I know some of its workings, but not all. When I locate the four gems, then I will have the answers you seek.”

“Find the interlopers, first. Do not fail me, wizard. And hurry,” Hedrack warned, scowling. “The time grows nigh for us to move against our enemies. I want this resolved before then.”

“I understand,” Falrinth said as he stepped through the chamber door. “I will bring good news.”

Hedrack, still deep in thought, shut and locked the door then returned to his chair. He sighed, feeling the heavy burden of command upon his shoulders today. The temples are fighting again, he reflected, and she gives little help in finding herself. Her own foolish pride let her be caught, and now I must dig her out again.

A soft noise distracted Hedrack from his thoughts, and he glanced across the room to where Mika and Paida stood, trembling. It was Paida who had whimpered, though both girls stared at their master with plaintive expressions on their faces. They both had been forbidden to speak, and Paida’s own doe-eyed stare seemed particularly expressive. She kept her lips firmly closed, but she mewled softly nonetheless, obviously trying to plead with Hedrack for permission to break his rule of silence.

The high priest smiled and strolled over to where his two serving girls stood. He squatted down beside Paida, noting with satisfaction how her calves were corded with the strain of standing on her tiptoes. He checked Mika’s, too, running his hand along the back of her leg, feeling the rock-hard muscle quivering there. The girl whimpered at his touch.

Each girl currently stood inside a box, her feet trapped there by a lid with holes in it that closed and locked about the ankles. Except where the girl’s toes touched, the floor of each box was covered entirely with small, thin metal spikes that jutted up underneath each heel. Each girl had two choices: raise herself up on tiptoe or rest her heel, and thus her weight, on the spikes. The lid of the box was high enough up the ankle that the girl’s leg was forced to remain perfectly vertical, and she could thus not sit down.

The wine that Mika had spilled upon one of Hedrack’s silk robes had been a particularly good vintage, and of course the robe itself was now ruined. Hedrack had decided to punish both girls so that Paida would learn just how high her new master’s expectations were for obedience, diligence, and care. He considered one quarter of an hour in the box a reasonable punishment, and the burning candle on his desk told him they had perhaps five minutes remaining.

Hedrack smiled at his two lovely maidens. “I must go out again for a while, but I will return soon.”

The two imprisoned girls whimpered in unison, but they obediently avoided speaking. A single tear trickled down Paida’s cheek, and her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides as she struggled to remain on her tiptoes. Hedrack nodded in satisfaction and departed.