Tia rode in silence northward with Kelvin behind her. She was deep in thought, for some unknown reason the very mention of visiting the underground realms of Redlene filled the young elf with an unreasoning claustrophobia. Unfortunately, her only explanation for this was that sometime in the past she had already visited that realm and experienced a terrible eventÉ she vaguely recalled a betrayal of some sort. After a week of quiet riding, they emerged from the serene woodlands and came to a halt atop a hill overlooking a fair-sized town.
"The town of Therlax, milady," Kelvin announced.
"Therlax?" Tia murmured. "Something about that name is familiar." She put her hand to her temple in an effort to dredge the specifics from the fog of her mind.
"You've been here perhaps?" Kelvin guessed. "Mayhap I should go on ahead and scout things out, eh?"
Tia nodded and dismounted, allowing Kelvin to take their chestnut mare into town.
Tia waited patiently for almost an hour before Kelvin came galloping back up the hill.
"Bad news, milady," Kelvin gasped as he dismounted. "You have definitely been here before and I don't think you left on the best of terms."
"What do you mean? How did I leave?"
"You broke out of their gaol, Tia, along with an elven man and a half-elven female. The guards have literally blanketed the streets with wanted posters. However, I do have good news."
"And that would be?"
"I know where they suspect and underearth entrance is_Neo-Goblin Ridge."
"Another familiar term."
"Yes, a battle there was immortalized in prophetic verse," Kelvin replied and began to sing:
Battle on the ridge
Roughly won by the side of light
Elven woman, heroine,
Falls to deepest despair.
"So it seems, and if we are fated to fight there again, you'll have to do the task because I am no warrior, just a connoisseur of songs, old and new."
"I'll protect you, dear heart," Tia grinned, patting Kelvin lightly on the cheek before remounting in front of him.
More than two days later, the duo approached the path up the ridge spotting no sign of life, at least none of recent vintage. They dismounted and Tia sent their horse galloping into the woods with a slap on the rear.
"Let's go," Tia smiled and led the way with a half-drawn bow.
At the mouth of the cave that was a former goblin lair, the duo paused as they felt a draft of warm air. The oddity of it was that it came not from outside the cave but in regular intervals from inside.
"Don't much like this, Tia," Kelvin remarked. "Feels too much like breath."
"What breaths like that?" Tia inquired, facing the dark interior.
"A dragon, methinks_and a fire-breather to boot."
"Is there a song about this?"
"None that I know," Kelvin admitted. "Sometimes fate is skewed by chance."
Tia nodded and started down the corridor, keeping to the shadows with her bow ready.
Five long minutes passed before the corridor widened and Tia noted the heat patterns of some huge beast.
"Who be there?" a voice echoed through the room and though it didn't move, the air around the beast warmed a few degrees.
"An elf mighty s-sir," Tia called, trying to keep from trembling. "And a bard."
"Puny elf," the creature grunted, shifting slightly to lay a baleful yellow eye upon Tia. "Dost thou know upon whom thou doth gaze?"
"No, sir," Tia concentrated on holding her bow steady under the dragon's cruel yellow gaze.
"Why dost thou invade the cave of Mighty T'Alonis, elfling?"
"We seek an entrance to the underground, T'Alonis the mighty. Might we pass, sir dragon?"
"No!" T'Alonis roared, flames licking at his teeth.
Tia, having expected a negative answer, let loose her arrow with a brave battle-cry, "Die, you senile beast!"
Her arrow found its mark in the dragon's left eye, embedding itself up to the fletching as Tia shouldered her bow. T'Alonis roared in pain and, half-blinded, let out a jet of flame at the spot were Tia had been moments before.
"Stay back, Kelvin," Tia cried, drawing her hunting knife and charging the beast.
T'Alonis oriented on the sound of Tia's voice and exhaled another jet of flame at that spot. Meanwhile Tia was plunging her tiny knife into his foreleg. The dragon roared and lifted his injured leg into the air, unfortunately, Tia's knife did not slide free as expected, it had it bone an stuck so when the leg rose so did Tia and she face the beast eye to eyes.
"I have you now, elf," the dragon gloated, inhaling for a tightly controlled blast of flame.
Tia, reacting on an adrenaline rush, kicked her feet into the beasts bad eye, jarring the arrow loose causing a white puss to leak from the wound. T'Alonis howled with renewed pain, his flame lost in his snakelike neck. Tia dropped to the ground and rolled to her feet. Now unarmed, Tia glanced around for a weapon, then she noticed a dreadfully familiar staff protruding from the top of the dragon's hoard, she grinned and dove for the wooden stave, sending gold coins skittering across the floor. Staff in hand and a daring plan in her mind, she charged T'Alonis again and pole-vaulted onto his back, then she scrambled to the point where neck met body and prepared to drive the point of the staff through the thick hide. The dragon craned its neck but faltered in blasting Tia with fire for fear of scorching its own hide. Tia brought the staff down on the beast's neck, it sank easily into the flesh with a loud yelp from T'Alonis and the staff ejected a bolt of lightning, lighting up the beast's nervous system. Finally, after the spectacular light show ended, the dragon collapsed in a lifeless heap with Tia standing astride its neck.
"Bravo!" Kelvin cheered. "There was not a song before but I, Kelvin the immortal bard, shall compose one to immortalize this struggle."
"Never mind that," Tia blushed, leaping from the dragon's back. "Why is that staff so familiar?"
"It's an elemental staff, lady-O. One of your companions was prophesied to use one, he must be dead or near-dead."
"A friend of mine_near-dead or dead."
"ALIVE, Tia," A strange and familiar voice came from a side corridor as an elven man emerged. "Thank you, bard, for helping her."
"Who are you?" Tia asked the elf.
"She has amnesia, child-friend," Kelvin explained.
"Oh," the elf nodded, then to Tia. "I am Elsian,your, uh, fianc- er, friend."
Tia watched in silence as Elsian retrieved his staff from the dragon's neck, then she murmured, "I know who you are, fop! Why are you following me, Elsian?"
"Yes," Elsian replied. "You said that but we settled that score."
Tears welled in Tia's eyes as she ran to Elsian and embraced him, "Oh Elsian, everything's a blur."
"There, there," Elsian comforted. "We'll find Ela then go home, it'll be all right."
Tia sniffed, nodded, and then went to recover her knife while Elsian summoned a fire-sprite from the elemental void to perch upon his staff and light the way. Once her possessions were again in her possession, Tia led the way deeper underground with Elsian on one arm and Kelvin following behind, plucking on his lute, trying to compose a song:
Tia the brave, a call to battle
She charged the dragon
with bow and dagger
invite defeat
blind the beast, bind the creature
a stave in the neck
ends the feature.
The trio arrived at an abandoned barricade about two days after the battle with T'Alonis.
"We fought foul dwarves here, Tia," Elsian reminded her, soon we'll reach the Dwarven city.
"Stupid dwarves," Tia muttered.
"Yes, that was your battle-cry."
"She seems to be recovering," Kelvin noted.
"So it seems."
The trio climbed over the barricade and continued down the path.
Three hours passed before they heard a loud, pain filled voice cry out in the elven tongue. Tia and her friends rushed into a large cavern filled with homes carved from stalactites and in the center, tied to a stalagmite, was a bare-breasted woman surrounded by dwarves, she was being tortured.
Tia gritted her teeth and drew her bow, then with a cry of "STUPID DWARVES!" she sent an arrow spinning towards the torturer. It hit with a think, sinking to the feathers into the torturer's neck.
"I'll get Ela," Elsian replied calmly.
Tia drew her knife and charged into the fray while Elsian prepared a spell from his staff. Tia lunged and caught a stunned dwarf in the back as Elsian sent a crackling fireball into the midst of the dwarves creating a path to Ela of dead bodies that he and Tia ran down.
Tia cut Ela's bonds with her knife and Elsian supported her to keep her from falling.
"Thanks for coming, Tia, Elsian," Ela muttered weakly.
"You'd better do something quickly, Elsian," Tia muttered. "Or those stupid dwarves will."
Elsian nodded and prepared another incantation, then released a hurricane that scared the dickens out of the dwarves, who fled down the corridor past Kelvin.
"Bravo, bravo!" Kelvin cheered.
"Who's he?" Ela murmured.
"That's Kelvin the bard," Elsian explained, turning off his hurricane while Tia hunted for a tunic for Ela. "Let's go home before those dwarves return."
"We can't," Kelvin answered. "Tia must rediscover her sword first."
Elsian nodded and after Ela donned a tunic, they continued on their way.
"There's gold down there," Tia exclaimed.
"It must be your sword, Tia," Ela replied, rushing to Tia's side. "But how do we get it."
"I can levitate Tia down and back," Elsian suggested.
"Sounds like a plan," Tia smiled. "Let's do it."
Elsian cast his spell and an invisible air spirit appeared to carry Tia down. Tia climbed into the spirit's arms and floated into the chasm.
"Arielle says hello," the air whispered in a man's voice as they flew down. "She says to visit soon."
For ten minutes they flew and Tia was now in reach of her sword, she reached out and grabbed the hilt and in that precise moment a bell went of in her mind. During that mind-numbing instant, everything in Tia's fog shrouded mind cleared, Tia remembered it all-including her desire to see the world and right wrongs.
It was a renewed Tia that emerged from the chasm to greet her friends. She sheathed her golden Katana in her belt and they prepared to journey to the surface again, leaving the dark lands behind for good, hopefully. But that is yet another chapter.
TO BE CONTINUED