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The Gilded Road



.................................Chapter 2: The Gilded Road.................................

"The boy must be moved. The enemy knows he is here. This will only be the first of many, and we can not interfere every time such a threat appears." Master Lengale was speaking to Heldrir only moments after the fire started to rage. Though the Demon had been banished, the flaming monstrosity it left behind did not so easily yield. Farmers were frantically trying to quench the blazing inferno before it got out of hand. Madam Lengale had sealed the flame wrath inside the barn, but it had caused severe damage to the supports. It was only a few minutes later that the barn finally collapsed and sent a huge column of smoke billowing out and up into the midday air. Silar was unconscious and had several nasty burns from the shear heat. Silar could barely hear voices all around him, even through the curtains of his unconscious mind.

"If the enemy has found him, then we must whisk away your son, Heldrir. You alone can not fight the tide that will rise to snuff out his life. Very soon whole armies will try to find and kill him." Madam Lengale’s voice rose from above the two boys as she worked on wrapping their burns in bandages. She was calm but authoritive as well.

"I will take him to Pinsive. The capital is full of travelers. Three more won’t cause a stir. It will be a good place to start his training." Heldrir sounded almost like a solider following orders as he hovered next to his unconscious son.

“No! I will not let my baby boy be tainted by magic like it did you my love. He is an innocent, with the introduction of magic, he will lose any semblance of a normal life!.” Felner spoke heatedly to her husband, not wanting any foreign influence to ruin her child. Silar knew nothing about what they were talking about, as he wasn’t really listening. He was unconscious and would most likely not remember any of this when he woke up. It was not his mind that reached out and studied their surroundings however.

"And what of the other boy? He has seen the face of a Demon. No mortal man can unsee such a face. He will carry that horror for the rest of his days." The voice was unfamiliar to Silar, but was sweet and motherly.

"Let him stay, there would be no use for him on the road. He is a fat and pitiful boy. Ive cared for him for too long. No more will I let him taint my son." The frail voice of Felner chided and sneered as her obvious anxiety sprung from her mouth once more.

"Child, doth not beest so quick to setteth this boy aside. Thy son needeth camaraderie to help him cometh to terms with leaving his home. Nor shouldst thee hence that which shall protecteth thy son. t’will not beest easy for him to understandeth. t may taketh years for Silar to groweth comfortable on the road. He wilt not liketh the ways of a traveler. ’Tis a dangerous and painful existence. I feareth that Silar shall beest traveling for the rest of his life." This voice echoed in every fiber of Silar’s being. He could feel the musical thump of every single word. This was the voice of a very powerful entity. A moment passed and Silar could hear his mother muttering and stomping off, clearly angry with what had transpired.

"We do not have time to waste on these arguments. The others will be there to guide you soon, for now follow Islen to safety. Islen, take Ciln with the family. I agree the boy will need someone familiar on his journey. We rarely ever get to pick our friends. When the time comes, the rest of us will meet you in the Velkern Inn along the main Gilded Road." This voice was also unfamiliar, and it seemed to speak to the motherly one. It was rough, even guttural, and laced with impatience.

"I can take them west, and then south along the Gilded Road. We will see you in a few months, the way is long and we will only be able to move during the day. Stay in touch Kel, you distance yourself sometimes. We need you now more than ever." The brisk female voice belonging to Islen spoke back to the guttural voice belonging to Kel.

“I wilt leave thee now, Heldrir. Followeth thy companions, Kel and Islen, they shall leadeth thee unto salvation. Ƿesaþ ʒé hále, ʒé habbaþ séo Módor’s sælþ.” There was a detonation and a rush of air as the entity left. Silar frowned, he had heard those names before. Somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind lurked the memory, but Silar could not pull the thought to the front of his mind. Before he could grasp the thought, sleep took him again.



It was a few days later when Silar awoke from his dreamless slumber, and his surroundings confused him. All around him was the white canvas of a wagon. Small slited holes on each side to act as windows had midafternoon sunlight streaming through them. Silar looked around the inside of the wagon, and gasped when he saw what was next to him. Beside him lay the still unconscious Ciln, the boy who had tried to save him the day of the fire. Ciln’s entire right side was bandaged and reeked of decaying flesh. For a brief moment, Silar thought the boy might be dead, and a chill went down his spine. The boy’s chest rose with the steady breathing in his lungs, and Silar relaxed; Ciln was alive. He was not dead, but badly burned. The scarring would cover his entire arm and side. Silar felt a slight tinge of pain in his heart for his friend. He knew without even thinking this boy had just lost his life of innocence. He didn’t even know what that meant, but it he felt it was true nonetheless.

Voices brought Silar’s attention to the rear of the wagon’s tent flaps and he could recognize the voice of his father speaking with a woman, who he could not hear all that clearly. Cautiously, he crawled to the rear of the wagon, and peeked his head out of the tent flaps. His father rode on his horse not five feet from the back of the wagon and instantly saw his son, and smiled at him.

“You’re awake! Its about time kiddo, your mother was getting worried you’d never wake up. Sleep well did you?” Heldrir seemed to be distracted as he talked, another voice barely audible under his.

“Yes, father, I slept fine. Who were you talking to just now, theres no one back here but us two.” Silar’s question was earnest, and innocent. But the reaction it received shocked him to his core. Heldrir’s attention snapped back and his eyes blazed almost angrily at his son.

“You must’ve been hearing things, Silar. I wasn’t talking to anyone. You feeling ok?” His words were oddly hollow, like they weren’t his own.

“I’m fine, but I swear I heard you talking,” Silar spoke softly, not knowing what else to say in his defense. “I’m sorry if that upsets you.”

Heldrir muttered something unintelligible and spurred his horse forward past the wagon on the right. “I’ll be right back son, don’t leave the wagon.” he said as he rode forward at a trot. Silar obediently stayed put inside the wagon with his injured friend.

Islen was leading the small group along a narrow gravel road leading west, along the Northern borders of the Denwei Crag Mountain ranges. Heldrir had insisted on bringing his only weapon, his lumbering axe. He wielded it with surprising pose as he approached Islen.

“I think we may have a problem.” Heldrir softly spoke to the woman leading his family away from their home.

“What do you mean, Heldrir? We havent had any indication the Demons know where we are going. If they did, we wouldve been attacked ten times over by now.” Islen tried remaining calm while talking, but worry was written all over her face.

“Silar just woke up. He said he could hear me talking with someone. Only, I was not talking. I was using the secrets to communicate with Kel.” he said this quietly, as to not alert his wife to any danger.

“Thats impossible Heldrir. He’s only a boy. The secrets can’t be utilized til well past his manhood.” Islen eyebrows raised with surprise, the tension seemingly disappearing from her body and face.

“He said he could hear me talking with a woman. Kel is most definitely not a woman. I wouldn’t be surprised if when I tell him about this he decides to remind us extensively about how much he isnt a woman.” He chuckled while saying this, relaxing slightly with the jest.

“Heldrir, if he did hear you, then that means theres either someone else talking out there, or someone else is listening. Both sound like bad news to me. We should search our surroundings tonight before we go to sleep. We don’t want spies following us all the way to our destination.”

“Agreed. I’m going to probe the near-by woods for a few hours. If anything happens, wake me and I’ll take care of it.”

“Alright, and Heldrir? Talk to him. He needs to know whats happening. You leave him in the dark about everything, and it’ll cost you down the road. We can’t have lose ends in this. We have too many enemies waiting for a chance to pluck him away from us. Even Felner knows that. You can’t protect him from the world anymore. He needs to know... he needs to know all of it.” Islen spoke to Heldrir in a reprimanding and official tone, yet also one filled with worry.

“I will. It’s time he learned, but at the right moment. Let me take care of it.” His reply was distracted as he steered his horse away from the lead and back towards the rear of the wagon. Silar was not known to eaves drop, but the second Islen had started talking, it was as if Silar could hear every single word resonate in his mind. It was disturbing; it gave him a headache. His father reached the rear and called in softly, trying not to disturb Ciln’s rest.

“Silar, come out here. We need to talk.” the words were not a command, but they weren’t a request either. Fatherly authority is rarely ever questioned. As Silar crawled to the rear, Heldrir pulled his horse up to the wagon flaps, holding out his arms to his son.

“There you are, hop on in front of me so we can talk.” Heldrir lifted his son out of the wagon and onto the neck of his horse. Though Silar was already seven years old, he still only weighed little less than a five gallon bucket of water. The horse did not even flinch when Silar climbed up onto its neck. Then Silar finally addressed what had been filling his dreams since the incident on his birthday.

“Father, why did we have to leave the farm? I don’t understand. One minute I was in the barn with my friends, and the next I was in a weird dream. I could hear all of you talking, along with a few strangers, but couldn’t see you.”

“Well that’s what I was going to talk to you about. You see, theres a lot of things out there that you don’t know about. Your mother and I have done our best to hide you from the truth. Otherwise it would put your life in danger. You were never going to be a normal child, we knew that. We were hoping that if we could keep you from it for long enough you’d be able to live an easier life. One that could be away from darkness and the depraved nature of our world.” Every word his father said further distressed Silar. He knew very little about the world, and what he did, came from his experiences on the farm. In his small little secluded world, Silar could not reach out to learn.

“Father, why didnt you at least teach me more about the other City-states? They must have some importance.” Silar questioned his dad, trying to get some sort of answer.

“Silar, I wasn’t permitted to teach you these things. Knowledge, especially with our family, is power. Our blood is ancient. It has purpose, and we can tap into that purpose, without even realizing it. If you were to tap into that without training, which you did, it could be catastropic. We got lucky, if you had reached any further, it would have been far worse.” Heldrir looked shaken as he explained this to his son.

“Worse than Ciln getting all burnt up? Worse than us having to leave our home? I don’t see how it could have gotten much worse father!” Silar raised his voice as anger grasped his heart.

“Young man, you have no idea how much this could have gotten out of hand. You should be thankful Ciln is even alive, or that you’re alive either. Theres no point in getting angry with me. I can’t fix it anymore than you can.” Heldrir did not get angry, he simply sighed and tried his best to explain the situation.

“What now then? Where are we going, Dad? What do you even want me to do?” Silar whined, confused and angry that his world was crashing down around him.

“For now son, I need you to be calm. I will teach you as much as I can before we get to where we are going. Once we get there, you will have to accept a truth I did as well. You won’t like it. Neither did I. Don’t be angry with me son, there’s nothing I can do but teach you.” he smiled, a sad, small, depressing smile. Heldrir was not one for hiding his emotions.

“Will I get to learn about the past too? Like where you came from?” Silar’s anger quickly turned to juvenile curiosity. There were no schools on the farm, and education was scarce in that kind of lifestyle.

“Of course. In time I’ll even teach you about the origins of our family. Where our purpose comes from. For now though, we will start with the basics. The City-states, you showed interest in them. Might as well start there. Tomorrow you start learning, about everything that our world has to offer.” Heldrir patted his son’s head as spoke, then leaned forward and kissed Silar’s forehead.

After he climbed off the horse back into the wagon, his father handed Silar a book, titled “Telriae: Past, Future, and Present.” and told him to read this as often as possible.

“It contains an index of every city, harbor, town, and village in all the Seven Principalities. It will help to memorize most of them to be able to know exactly where you are. My father gave me that book, and taught me nearly everything I know.” Heldrir smiled and kicked his horse forwards, off to the side of the wagon. Silar was left again alone with his thoughts and what to make of what he had been told. He studied the first few pages of the book, and turned to marvel at the map on the last page. It was huge!

Silar had rarely ever seen a map, and the ones he did were only ever of local farms and mountain ranges. The map he looked at was several thousand times larger. He read all the names, commiting each to memory. He saw the entire City-state of Denwei in the northeast, the major farming territory. South of there was SangHorn, the vast military district. Even further south was Ashrain, a complete mystery to everyone. On the west coast was Lenvale, the trade sector of the Principalities. On the North coast was Khahl, home of the horse clans. Its close neighbor was Nebaal, the only legal mining district in the Seven Principalities. And finally right in the middle of it all was Pinsive, the capital of all Telriae, and home to the largest population on the planet. Vaguely, Silar remembered his father mentioning that as their destination, and where they would slip into the multitude of crowds. All Silar cared about though was just one name on the map in the southeast.

The Wall, the largest fortress man had ever built. The oldtimers on the farm used to tell stories for reasons why it was built. One theory says it was built to keep out a horde of beast like men in the south. Another speaks of an ancient Dragon clan that fought against men. Even more spoke of the undead roaming in the Plains of the Damned. Silar always thought they were fooling him. There, however, was the proof staring him in the face. The Wall existed, and many hundreds of thousands of men stood at the top, patrolling and guarding every single day. Silar’s imagination ran wild with the stories, eventually setting the book aside to day-dream of impossibilities.



Over the next several weeks, Ciln still hadnt fully healed and continued to rest most of the day. During this time Heldrir taught his son about every little detail about the Seven Principalities. Silar grew so bored with it, he frequently sat in the back of the wagon, staring off into the distance and dreamed about fantasies and stories while his father rambled on. Pixies and Fairies, Dragons and Goblins, Elves and Dwarves, he dreamt of them all. He often wondered if any of them were real and constantly debated with himself abo-

“SILAR, PAY ATTENTION!” Silar jolted and fell out the back of the wagon, straight into a puddle of mud. Though he knew he was about to get a scolding, he still felt the urge to dodge his reprimand. It was at that moment when it hit him. Literally, something hit him hard over the head. There were screams and shouts around him, though Silar was knocked senseless. He felt himself get picked up and carried away. His mind was blank and empty as the sound of swords hitting swords clanged in the air. The swoosh of air being cut by the edge of a blade, and the sound of steel cutting into flesh. A cry of pain, then silence. Silar fell back into the mud. He felt a surge of energy and Silar recuperated almost instantly. His eyes snapped open to look up into the face of Islen, the woman leading them to Gods’ know where.

“Silar, you alright? There were bandits hiding in the woods, they snatched you up the second you fell out of the wagon.” She didnt speak much, at least not to him. Heldrir walked up with his axe drawn and blood on the blade. Without even talking he lifted his son up and carried him back to the wagon. When they got there, Heldrir gave a stern look to his son.

“Don’t you EVER do that again, do you understand me? You could’ve been killed. You stay in this wagon at all times until I tell you to come out. You don’t day-dream unless I tell you to. You have to for your own safety.” He spoke heatedly, but not angerly. He almost never got angry. If he was, Silar would most definitely cry. He wasn’t a soft child, but Silar believed his father had a rage inside him. Heldrir was covered in blood, more from his enemies than his own.

“Please just stay in the wagon. I won’t let anyone hurt you my dear child. We still have a long way to go on this road. We arent even out of the forests yet.” Heldrir’s eyes seemed to glaze over as Silar could feel him push his awareness out into the nearby woods. He watched with his mind and slowly tried to imitate his fathers actions. As he followed his father’s mind, he could see beyond the surrounding trees. He pushed further, past his father and deeper and deeper into the woods. He could see the foot of a mountain, blazing red in sky. He could see red liquid spewing from its peak, along with thick black smoke. His mind reached up towards the mountain, as if it called to him.

“Sssssiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillllllllllaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....” the mountain blazed red hot in his mind.

“Sssssiiiiiiiiiiiiillllllllaaaaaaaarrrrrrrr....” the mountain grasped his mind and pulled it towards the peak.

“SSIIIIILLLLLAAAARRRRR....” His mind crested the top and down into the depths of the mountain he peered to the core of the chasm. But it was not the depths that stared back at him. It was the blazing red mountain, like a gaping maw feasting on the sky.

“SILAR! WAKE UP, SNAP OUT OF IT!” A crisp slap brought him to his senses, but the only thing he could see was that awful maw pulling him in. His father was there now, muttering something rapidly under his breath and pushing his mind towards Silar now.

“Silar, you need to close your eyes. Do not stare into the maw. Stare into my eyes.” Once again Silar saw that beautiful pure white face, in full detail. He could see the eyes, crystalline white, shimmering with a thousand perfect surfaces. This was the face of a God.

“Stare into my eyes and be at peace.” Once more he heard that bell tone voice and all was cleaned from his mind. This time he did not go unconscious, but instead awoke immediately. His father knelt beside him with his hands on Silar’s chest. His mother hovered behind Heldrir, completely distraught, convinced her son was dead. Silar was shaking and slowly he leaned up.

“What was that awful mountain, father? I could see vile wretched creatures swarming inside that maw.” his voice was faint and shaken.
Felner was still crying, now holding onto Islen as she comforted her.

Heldrir sighed and looked his son full in the face. “That mountain has had many names. The Destroyer, The Accursed, The Flaming Maw. Its true name is a highly guarded secret, not even I know it. All we know is that mountain is the source of it all. It is the rift between this world and the Demons world. That rift has been pouring flaming rock for tens of thousands of years, and with it Demons. That mountain, is the Flaming Peak of Kazad.”

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