Chapter 4 - The City

Neither of the boys had ever been to city the size of Alganeer. Built on a natural plateau, it had high defensive walls and huge gate towers straddling the road. As they neared, they could see that the gates were open and soldiers were on duty outside, though performing only cursory checks of those entering the city. The battlements above the gate were empty of soldiers.

“For such a heavily defended city, they don’t make much effort to inspect those entering it,” Daegarun noted.

Agnathor responded, “In times of peace, they are pretty lax. The Vulani elves, fractious as they are, are no threat. The Kintari are too far north to be a threat and the Lizardfolk haven’t ventured forth from their beloved swamp in generations. The Arganeid war has been over for centuries. The only dangers are bandits operating along the roadways and the occasional beast prowling down from the mountains.

Passing through the gate was like entering a new world for the boys. Where Arnath was the central trade town in the north, Alganeer was the Andalathan trade hub. Goods flowed through the city from every part of the kingdom. Gems and precious metals from the east, wine, fruit and finished goods from the west, grain, tabak, dwarven-wrought goods and weapons came from the north, and from the southern coastal cities, spices and exotic foods. Everything eventually found its way through Alganeer, making it a very rich city indeed. Most impressive of all, though, were the fabled Triad Towers in the city center. They towered nearly three hundred feet high and were visible outside the city for miles.

Though primarily a city of humans, Alganeer had a mix of many, many races, most of whom Daegarun could not even identify. Elves, dwarves and gnomes he recognized easily. Also the rare insect-like Arganei from the western realms and the frost-dwelling hairy humanoids, the Harigaaps, all lived in different portions of Alganeer. He saw a few of the enormous Reus, up from the Buklehorn Hills, towering over the crowds. Such sights were apparently so commonplace here that none caused a crowd-gathering spectacle. The boys stood with their mouths agape at the sheer number of new sights, sounds and smells to behold, only to be astounded again at the next incredible site. A group of elves were traveling with a ChakChak.

Orlen was the first to speak up. “Agnathor, is that a ChakChak?”

“It is indeed,” replied Agnathor. “ChakChak’s live with the elves, sharing a bond with them that none of the rest of us seem to be able to fathom. At some point they choose an elven companion with whom they abide for the remainder of their lives. It’s rare to see a ChakChak even in the elven realms, but this is the first I’ve seen outside elven lands. And this one is unbonded. You can tell because there are no yellow streaks in the patterns on the carapace.”

The boys stared openly at the ChakChak. Where elves where humanoid, graceful and generally physically beautiful, ChakChaks were almost a nightmare to behold. It had a large dome-like upper body three feet across from the bottom of which descended about a dozen tentacles. The domed carapace in this case started with blue hues around the bottom edge eventually changing to red hues near the apex. It was ringed with eyes around the lower rim. Its skin was shiny and smooth-looking. It had neither legs nor appendages other than the tentacles. It floated through the air by some indiscernible means.

Agnathor continued, “Those tentacles are each tipped with a large, sharp barb that retracts when not needed. Its mouth is underneath the dome, fed by two smaller feeder tentacles on either side. This one is quite old judging by the size. An adult usually has a two foot shell. This one is much larger than that.” The elves with the ChakChak moved down one of the side roads.

“That was amazing!” Orlen clearly could not suppress his excitement. “I wonder what else we’ll see!”

As Agnathor led them deeper into the city, they began to perceive a pattern to the city’s layout. It was built in concentric circles, with each ring having a distinct purpose. The outer rings were where the common folk lived and worked. Littered with small shacks and cottages, it had blacksmith shops, stables, tanneries, inns and taverns, bazaars, tailors, and more. Farther in the homes got richer, as did the shops and businesses. Rich merchants plied their trade in the inner circles beside moneylenders and jewelers. The inns in this circle were large and well-maintained. Agnathor took them to a relatively modest one oddly named The Hill Inn. Considering the city was built on a plateau, technically every inn was on a hill.

As they approached a man came out from the adjoining stable and greeted the caravan warmly.

“Agnathor, good to see you again! It’s been too many years since you were last here. And, you’ve brought quite a contingent with you this time. Twill put a straining on the dwarven accommodations in The Hill but I think ole Zem will manage something.” He gestured and several boys came out to lead the oxen and wagons into the stable. He turned to Daegarun and Orlen and spoke to them directly. “Greetings and welcome to The Hill Inn. My name Greyggan and I run the inn’s stable. If you two young gentlemen will dismount and lead your horses to the stable I’ll have my boys get some hay and grain for them.”

Agnathor interrupted, “Ah, Greyggan, the boys are with me. This is my son Daegarun and that is his friend Orlen. Each is but the other’s shadow, so they are both here.”

Greyggan looked stunned for a moment, but quickly recovered. “My sincerest apologies to you both. You just seemed so out of place in this group that I simply assumed you were traveling separately and happened to arrive at the same time. My boys will of course care for your mounts.” Two more boys came over and took the reins.

Stepping through the front doors of The Hill Inn explained a lot. The Inn appeared to have only two floors from the outside, once inside it was apparent that it had actually been built downwards. A wide stair led down to the main room that was dug into the earth. Archways headed off in several directions from the main hall. A very old, and very round, dwarf came out of one and exclaimed in a booming voice, “Agnathor Ironwill you old beer-belcher! Been a long time! Come down and share a pint and fill me in on the comings and goings up there in Copper Mountain!”

“A pint I’d never pass up, ‘cept to get a keg!” Agnathor replied. “This lot’s with me, so I’d be expecting each of them to get a pint as well!” A general cheer rose from behind him.

“Of course, of course! Far be it from me to deny a thirsty throat a pint!”

Chaos ensued as the dwarves tried to descend the stairs all at the same time. Half ended up rolling down the stairs, apparently none the worse for wear. The boys stood back and watched the riotous tableau. They also noted that unlike the Staggering Idiot, all the tables and chairs were made of thick stone. In short order tavern boys and girls brought out pint after pint of ale.

Orlen sniffed his mug and turned to Daegarun, “Why is it that nearly everything dwarves seem to eat and drink always has to have a strong, usually foul, smell?”

Daegarun only laughed.

&&&

The next morning Daegarun and Orlen sat at breakfast and waited for the dwarves to rise. Lagrum appeared first and sat down with the boys.

“If you two are waiting for Agnathor, you missed him. He headed off for the Sage Guild before sunrise.” He gave them each a pouch filled with mostly copper and bronze coins. “That’s from your chest. He asked me to give it to you. Oh, and one piece of advice: don’t pick a fight you can’t win. He didn’t expect to be back until long after nightfall. I have my own assignments, so I’d best be about them. Enjoy the city, boys.” With that, he headed out the main door into the city.

For the two, exploring the city had to begin at the fabled Triad Towers. Finding them proved easy as they could be seen from anywhere in the city or countryside. Standing in the plaza outside the towers, the boys stood fascinated. The towers were constructed of huge blocks in a wealth of colors, each cunningly carved and placed without mortar. Each tower was easily a hundred feet across at the base, tapering as it rose up, with a single arched entrance. Windows dotted the sides at irregular intervals. The towers formed a triangle, with a single small, bone-white temple in the center. Walking around, the boys saw that the entire complex was actually four temples. The North Tower was dedicated to Amadia, Bringer of Life and Patroness of Healers, widely worshiped across Andrath. The other two belonged to Imrothen, the Watcher of the Roads, and Vindgouden, the God of Wealth, both gods of great importance to a city built on trade. The center, small temple was dedicated to Hainoch. There were no other markings on the temple. The boys had never heard of the god Hainoch and decided to venture in.

Inside the temple was dark. Torches, though scarce, were lit and hung on the walls at intervals. The little bit they could see of the inside was a stark contrast to the outside. Inside was well kept and everything was in good repair. Front and center in the main hall was a statue of an old man writing in an enormous book with a quill pen. At the foot of the statue was a small bowl, ostensibly for offerings, and a small bronze bell. Daegarun placed several copper coins in the bowl and rang the bell. Footsteps on the stone floor announced someone’s quick response to the bell.

The footsteps approached closer and finally someone stepped into the pool of light surrounding the statue. It was a very old man who looked disconcertingly like the statue. He wore embroidered blue robes that draped over his thin body like some huge tapestry wrapped around a twig. But his eyes held a twinkle, and his voice was clear and vibrant.

“Ahhh…Children, welcome! I am HaiNurien, head priest of this temple. Nice to have visitors! We seldom have any these days. Alas, the pursuit of knowledge takes a lesser rank to the pursuit of gold in Alganeer these days. Such a shame. Come, Daegarun, come Orlen. Let’s move to the back room where we will be more comfortable. We can talk privately there.”

Daegarun was a little disturbed that someone he’d never met knew him. “How do you know our names?”

“There are some advantages to being a priest of the god of knowledge, my boy! Come!”

The priest led them through a short hallway to a small chamber. Every inch of wall space was covered with shelves jammed with books and scrolls covering and in the center sat a large table, similarly adorned. They took seats around the table and faced the priest.

The old priest regarded the pair, his keen gaze an obvious appraisal of them. “Curious about the Temple of Hainoch, eh? Let me guess, you’ve never heard of him?” He gave them a wide grin at the look of astonishment on their faces.

“I’m afraid Hainoch is not widely worshipped in the north, so it’s no surprise you are unfamiliar with his temples. South, in Dilann, is the Grand Temple. His presence there is much more prevalent. In addition to being the God of Knowledge, he is also the Patron of Magic, though certainly not the sole source of magic.”

Orlen could hardly contain himself, “Magic has a source?”

Seeing his opening, the priest continued. “Take Sharagrim the Maker, favored by the dwarves. He lends magic to his followers to enchant items crafted by your folk. Few true spellcasters exist among the dwarves, but many enchanters there are indeed. Each god provides his or her followers with their particular flavor of magic. In the north, you probably worshipped Korrelzaad, Patroness of Nature and the Harvest or Meerivier, Protector of the Waters, or perhaps even Teften, the Earth God.”

“We have temples to all three, as well as Sharagrim. I know the others, but I never thought about it much,” offered Orlen. Daegarun nodded his agreement. Orlen continued, “They don’t seem to do much for us so I never really paid much attention to Them.”

“Ah…Of course.” HaiNurien grinned again. “The gods don’t do things for you personally, so you ignore them?” He waved off a reply from Orlen. “It’s a common statement to be sure. Each god has their place is this world, just as you do, and a job for which they are responsible, again, just as you do. Whether you worship them or not, they will do their respective jobs because that is why they exist. Korrelzaad, Patroness of Nature and the Harvest, will cause the rain to fall even if you don’t ask for it. Your grain will grow at her will regardless. If you do worship, though, maybe you get a better harvest, or less blight, something like that.”

“Well then, how does a god of knowledge and magic fit in?” Daegarun asked.

“Now you are getting into the hierarchy of the gods, Daegarun,” HaiNurien continued. He took a scroll from his sleeve and began unrolling it.

“Look here and you’ll see the Grand Hierarchy.” The pair looked at the drawing, which looked someone like a family tree.

“Hainoch is one of the three Elder Gods of Creation. Hainoch Who Knows All, along with Aarde The Singer and Hetleven the First Mother, brought everything that we know into existence, the earth, the four Moons of the Seasons, the sun, the trees, the animals, etc. But it wasn’t enough. They had created something wonderful, but their creation ended there. So, they created the races of the world, the elves, dwarves, humans, giants, gnomes, etc. The three gifted each race with different qualities to set them apart. But still there was no spark, no fire, no energy of creation in the world. They pondered this long and hard, and realized that they had created perfection. There was no reason to create, to build, or to grow for there was no need to do so. They needed to add elements of uncertainty to the world with which it could contend and grow. So they brought into being the younger gods, the Six Gods of Accordance, whom we worship today, and with them, the Six Gods of Opposition, against whom we strive.”

Orlen looked confused. “The Gods made the Gods?”

HaiNurien chuckled. “Of course! The Elder Gods cannot create disharmony, but for their vision to be fulfilled, disharmony was necessary. So they created beings capable of introducing disharmony into their creation.

“Remember two things, boys. Each race is touched differently by the Gods. Some are more active than others. For example Sharagrim is active with the Dwarves though you cannot deny the role of Teften the Earth God. The Elves worship Korrelzaad primarily, though Amadia the Healer plays a huge part in their lives just as she does in humans. Vlam the Lord of Fire is a God of Opposition, yet all use fire for warmth and cooking. Dwarves rely heavily on it for smelting ore and crafting jewelry, armor and weapons. There is Accordance and Opposition in all races, so you must take care in prejudging any race to be one or the other.

“Secondly, life is in constant motion: the tide comes in, the tide goes out; day turns into night, which turns again into day; summer becomes fall and winter becomes spring. So too it is with the Gods. The Gods of Accordance will be ascendance, then they will recede and the Gods of Opposition will ascend. Then once again the Gods of Accordance will return. In short, never give up hope, boys.” With that, he gave a small bow, turned and left the small chamber.

The pair left the temple in a somewhat quiet and contemplative mood. Without realizing it, their worldview had just grown much larger. They toured the inner circle of the city without speaking and then turned off onto one of the “spoke” roads radiating out from the center. The silence between them would have continued had they not stopped outside the quirkiest of shops. “Wenden’s Magiporium” the sign read in trade tongue and about a dozen languages, assumably. The large front shutters were wide open to catch any breeze on this warm summer day. From their vantage point on the road they could see all manner of sparkling, glittering and glowing items through the window. With a mischievous grin they entered the shop.

No one was evident as they walked through the door. The shop was narrow, with the heavily-shelved side walls only a dozen feet apart, but it was deep. It extended backwards into darkness due to the utter lack of windows other than those in the front. Orlen scanned the shelves littered with odds and ends and quickly commented, “This shop should have been called Wenden’s Magical Detritus!” Daegarun’s laugh was cut short by the appearance of a gnome from somewhere in the receding darkness. He was only three feet tall at best and was nearly that wide. He wobbled through the shelves and came towards the boys.

“Now, now,” he said, “do I come to your home and comment on your poor taste in furniture?” He laughed heartily at the feeble joke that was apparently funnier in his head. “After all, how much rock do you have to dig out to find a diamond?” He looked at the boys as if expecting an answer. The pair just stared back, unsure of what to say.

“I, uh,” Daegarun started to say when he was interrupted by the gnome again.

“My name is Wenden, and this is my Magical Emporium. The storefront wasn’t wide enough for the sign so I had to shorten the name. Welcome to my humble shop.”

“Thanks! Sorry about the detritus comment, it’s just there is so much here that looks…broken. My name is Orlen, and this is Daegarun.”

“That’s alright; I get that all the time!” He looked the boys over with a keen eye. “Hmmm…What might you two need? I can assume you’re new here, otherwise you’d have heard of my shop, which is known far and wide in Alganeer! You, boy, obviously work the forge, your shoulders are wider than I am tall! And you, Orlen, are so skinny and pale that I’d guess you’ve never even seen a forge! Ha, ha, ha! Just kidding. I’ve got lots of fascinating things here for boys your age!” He jammed his hand into a pile of stuff, seemingly at random, and pulled out a little dragon figure about thee inches long that appeared to be made of bronze. It had a small pin through the center of it that was set in a circular base made of some grey stone.

“Take this, for example. It’s a Treasure Seeker! Just what you boys need, eh? You like treasure, don’t you?”

He held the dragon by the base in one hand, and with the other touched the dragon’s nose and said, “Seek.” The dragon started spinning on the center pin, going round and round and round.

Orlen looked at the thing very dubiously. “If it’s so good at finding treasure, why don’t you have a grand shop and servants instead of this dark, dusty, cluttered shack in the outer ring of the city?”

Wenden looked at the still spinning dragon figure. “Ha! I forgot there’s so much of value in the shop it doesn’t know which way to point!” With that he casually tossed it back on the shelf and shoved his hand into another pile of junk on a different shelf. “Oh yes, this is a rare Guffybird Feather!” The feather was nearly six inches long and two wide. It was so white as to be almost translucent.

Daegarun’s curiosity piqued, “What does it do?”

“What does it do? What doesn’t it do! If you are falling, you can wave this feather and slow your fall so you don’t get hurt! And, if you are attacked, you can summon a guffybird to come to your defense! Never hurts to have an instant ally in a fight, especially a guffybird! But, best of all, if you swirl this around in any liquid, it will turn it into a mug of pale honeywine!”

He waved it around in the air in front of them. It made a slight whistling sound as he whipped it left and right.

“What’s a guffybird? I’ve never heard of one?”

“What, you’ve never heard of the majestic guffybird? I don’t even know where to begin! I mean, just look at this feather! How pure it is! It’s so white it’s almost colorless!” He continued to wave it back and forth in front of them! “And it’s only twenty silver pieces! Quite a bargain let me tell you!”

Daegarun was getting more and more frustrated with the gnome. “What do we want with a stupid white feather, you silly little gnome? Twenty silver pieces will let us live well for several months? Bah! This is a waste of time!”

Orlen, who had begun ignoring the goofy gnome, was digging through one of the piles on the other side of the room. He pulled out a small cylinder about five inches long that tapered round knobs on each end. It seemed to be made of some type of bleached wood. It felt warm in his hand as he held it. Against his better judgment, he decided to ask Wenden about it. He held it up in front of him, “Wenden, what’s this?”

Wenden, abandoning the Guffybird Feather walked over to Orlen. “Oh, that looks like the wheels and axle from one of my children’s toy carts. Since they are grown now, it’s not really of much use.”

“Why is it warm?”

“What do you mean? Let me see.” Wenden took the small cylinder in his hand. “Doesn’t seem warm to me.” He handed it to Daegarun. “What do you think?”

Daegarun held it for a moment, “Doesn’t seem warm to me either.” He handed it back to Orlen. “You sure it feels warm? Maybe you are just running a fever.”

Wenden piped up, “A fever! I’ve got a cure for anything that ails you! I’m sure it’s here somewhere.” He began digging in another pile of junk.

Orlen quickly tried to distract Wenden. “How much for the broken cart wheels? Maybe I can use it to make something for my little sister.”

“That?” asked Wenden, “Two coppers and good riddance.”

“Deal!”

The boys walked out of the shop. “Phew! Glad to be out of there. That gnome was a huge nut ball! Why did you want that piece of junk, anyway? And what little sister?”

“Because I think it’s more than what he says. It definitely feels warm to me, and when I hold it I can hear a buzzing sound from it. I made up a little sister to keep him from becoming suspicious of why I wanted it and charging me more.”

Wenden watched from the darkness of his shop as the pair walked away. A twinkle appeared in his eye and a grin came unbidden to his face. “Well, now,” he said to himself, “that was a job well done. Now to be on to other things.” He gestured with both hands and spoke several words of power. The littered shelves melted away into the nothingness that they actually were as the illusion began dissolving. In moments the abandoned shop looked abandoned again. His own image began changing, growing taller and thinner. He stood in the empty shop, clothed in his true self. He was a tall humanoid, pale skinned with white-blonde hair. His face had narrow features and a very small nose with large slits for nostrils. His linen pants and shirt were loose fitting and comfortable. He carried a white rod almost as long as his arm. He stabbed the rod forward into the air and slashed downwards. A jagged slash appeared in the air before him and opened wider, showing a room beyond with a desk and many books. Without looking back, he stepped through the opening.