The Peachwillow Chronicles Pt. 03

Pt. 03: The Crown of Hedayat

"See that constellation there? We call that the Manticore."

"What's a manticore?" Aatos asked.

"It's a horrible beast with a man's head, a lion's body and a scorpion's tail. To be honest, I'm not sure if they actually exist- I've never seen one, alive or dead."

"We call that constellation the Snow-beast back home. That's a shaggy white creature with pincers on its head and scary blue eyes. I know they exist because I've seen some of their pelts."

Aatos and Cethaz were riding their horses towards a small town at the edge of some heavily forested hills. It was nighttime, and it was just late enough that all the stars were out. Cethaz pointed to another group of stars and said,

"We call that one the Trident. What do you call it?"

"That one's a bit too far south for us to see it in Suoveli. I guess that if we had a name for it, it might be... the Pitchfork?"

"What's that?"

"It's pretty much a trident, but you use it to lift hay or straw."

By this point, they had reached the outer limits of the town. Cethaz said, "We had better stable our horses and stay at the local inn for the night. We won't be able to take the horses into the hills." The dwarf-maid's green eyes narrowed. "But remember our rule, no... amorous activity until we find the crown and get back with it. This is an important mission. Remember, I'm not in love with you, right? We just have an arrangement."

The elf sighed, his disappointment evident on his boyish face. "Yes, I know."

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It was mid-morning, and two figures were making their way into the hilly forest. It consisted mostly of birches and oaks, and most of the surfaces were covered with moss. It was quite a moist place, as it rained almost every day. Before long, they had reached a point where the sky was quite difficult to see through the foliage.

"Why did you insist on bringing me out all the way to Lufanistan? You know that I'm not much use in a fight, and I only know a few simple magic spells."

"Because the biggest rule when you're doing anything dangerous is that you never go alone for any reason. I've heard so many horror stories about arrogant young adventurers who went out all by themselves and were never seen again- or whose corpses were found much later. Some of them didn't even get killed by a monster or bandit, they just got injured in an accident and couldn't make it back to civilization. That's why you need a partner to help get you out of trouble if something horrible happens."

Aatos said, "I guess that makes sense."

"Also, you found that map in the library archives so I thought it was appropriate for you to come along. Plus, you can carry more supplies than I can alone."

The pair made their way up the side of a river that was flowing down from the hills. Cethaz took out the map and consulted it.

"I think that we'll find that standing stone if we just keep following this river. Then we go due east, and that's where we'll find whatever's left of Hedayat's forest villa."

"Do you really think that we'll get an audience with Her Majesty?"

"Well, yeah. The minister of Antiquities promised that we would, right? She would love the chance to recover an important artifact from dwarven history."

After they had followed the river's path for a while, Aatos noticed a large, stationary shape that was visible through the trees. "Hey, look at that!"

Cethaz peered off into the distance. "That does look like the standing stone on the map. Follow me."

Cethaz and Aatos walked over to the shape in the trees, making sure to make as little noise as possible and to look around them for threats. As they got closer, they got a better look at the stone. It was in the middle of a small area with no trees, and it was sticking up out of the ground at an angle. The stone was almost as tall as the trees surrounding it and as black as jet.

Aatos approached the stone and touched it. It looked very aged but it was quite smooth to the touch, except for the letters that were inscribed on it. He squinted at them for a bit before saying,

"I can't make head or tail of this, it's old Lufani and that's only distantly related to modern Dwarvish. Even the alphabet is different than what I'm used to. We needed that specialist to translate the map, remember?"

Even with her face covered by chain armor, Cethaz' frustration was quite evident. "Well, at least we know where to go from here. I hope that we can get to the villa before nightfall, though- we'll have to be really careful if we don't. There are dusk-apes around."

Aatos shuddered. He knew that the nocturnal dusk-apes were the reason that King Hedayat's ancient villa had gone undisturbed for so many centuries; almost no one was willing to risk going into the forest after dark with them around. He had them imported into the region from a land far to the south to protect his villa from assassins; they had remained in the forest ever since.

He asked, "What should I do if we run into some of them?"

"Hide, I'll try to take care of them."

---------

The sun had nearly set, and Aatos was worried. He was terrified of encountering the dusk-apes, and although Cethaz was quite the formidable warrior, he still wasn't confident about their chances against a group of them. He was almost beginning to panic when Cethaz pointed out a small clearing off in the distance.

"I think that might be it, let's go over and look."

Anxious about the approaching night, they started to jog towards the opening in the trees, eager to find shelter as soon as possible. They arrived at a small doorway with a staircase leading down underground; the entrance was covered with vertical bars.

"Hold on, I've got this."

Cethaz took her battle axe out of its sling and moved it backwards, getting ready to strike at the bars that blocked the way to the villa.

"Wait, Ceth, don't do that!"

She looked at Aatos. "You don't think that I could smash through those bars?"

"It's not that- there's a switch on the wall behind the grate."

Cethaz peered into the dark. There was a grate that was visible on the side of the passage.

"But why does that matter? We can't reach it."

"Oh yes we can. Just watch."

Aatos put his hands out before him and started to wiggle his fingers around. He closed his eyes and focused himself as he motioned past the grate and towards the switch. The switch began to shake a little bit, and after a few seconds, it flew upwards, and the bars retracted into the ground.

Cethaz clapped. "I guess that smashing through every obstacle might not be the best course of events."

As they made their way through the entrance, Aatos said "And this way, we can close the door behind us and make sure that none of those dusk-apes sneak in." He stopped in front of the switch and pressed it downward, causing the bars to spring up and block the way again.

"I wouldn't have thought of that, that was some nice thinking, Aatos. I guess that the old king didn't take magic into account because so few dwarves can use it."

"Yeah, that was a pretty simple spell that I used there. But let's be on our guard. If Hedayat imported a whole legion of vicious apes into the surrounding forest, there's no telling what kind of dangers lie within."

"Well, yes. As I learned in history class, Hedayat was famously paranoid. Although even that failed to protect him from his mistress stabbing him while he was escaping here as the army of Ardaroun invaded his kingdom."

"Yeah, I kind of figured that he was afraid of being assassinated- even his villa is underground."

By this point, Cethaz and Aatos had reached the bottom of the staircase. Aatos waved his hand, and a sphere of bluish-white light lit up the darkness.

"Doesn't casting spells tire you out?" Cethaz asked.

"Well, yes, but the light spell doesn't make me too fatigued. It's the more active stuff like healing or shooting blasts of electricity or fire that makes me weary."

Cethaz surveyed the area; it was brilliantly decorated, with friezes all over the walls, and elaborate stone furniture scattered around the room. The villa was filled with dust but was in quite good condition otherwise.

After they had searched a few rooms to no avail, Cethaz and Aatos walked down a long hallway. It opened into a large room with a few steps leading up to a pedestal on the far side; there was a small tiara with a large blue jewel in the middle lying on top of it. It was bathed in white light from a hole above the pedestal, giving the room a natural luminosity that the rest of the villa lacked.

"That must be the crown of Hedayat. It's a little... smaller than I had expected."

"I see where you're coming from. But an artifact that has its own room must be pretty well protected; be very careful here."

As they advanced into the crown's chamber, a panel in the wall clicked. Cethaz and Aatos watched in horror as the panel flipped around and revealed a tall armored figure holding a heavy sword and shield. It wore a pointed helmet similar to the one that Cethaz had, and it lumbered towards them with the weight of a giant boulder. Aatos was only shoulder high to the armored fiend, and he quaked in fear as it approached them while making horrible clanking sounds.

The dwarf-maid barked at Aatos: "Your sparks and flames won't hurt this automaton. This is my battle!"

Aatos dashed off into the hallway as Cethaz took out her axe. She gripped it in both hands as she circled the automaton, gazing at it with her eyes narrowed. And then the machine brought down its sword, and she dodged out of the way like a cat. She took her mighty battle-axe and hit it in the torso; it made a loud ringing noise but it seemed to have little effect. The giant warrior got ready to thrust its sword at Cethaz; she leapt backwards and parried the great blade with her axe, knocking her away and off of her feet. She quickly recovered and charged toward her opponent, delivering a powerful swing towards the machine with every fiber of muscle in her small body; the automaton brought its shield up to block the axe, but Cethaz had so much force behind her strike that the shield split in two under her blow.

One half fell down to the ground while the machine threw the other at Cethaz; she could not quite manage to dodge it and it hit her in the side. Cethaz groaned in pain as she fell to the ground, dropping her axe; she was wearing heavy armor but she could tell that she had been badly bruised. She struggled to get back up onto her feet as she saw the metal colossus stand over her...

And then she heard a loud cracking sound. She looked over to the entrance, where Aatos was standing. She moved her gaze down to the floor, where there was a stone stool lying on its side; Aatos must have gone back to one of the other rooms and retrieved it to throw at the machine. The monster turned to Aatos to go after him and Cethaz saw an opening; she picked up her axe and snuck up on the creature from behind, and swung her weapon towards the back of its left knee. She made a direct hit; cracks immediately formed in the machine's leg, and it fell over to the side before it could reach Aatos.

They watched as the machine flailed on the ground; Cethaz steeled herself before she jumped towards the automaton with her axe and nearly severed its head from its body with just one blow. After that, it stopped moving.

"And that's why those battle machines went out of style- their legs were easy targets."

"Are you okay, Cethie?"

"I've got some bruises but I'll be fine. Now let's get what we came here for."

Cethaz made her way towards the pedestal with the crown on it, with Aatos right behind her. She made her way up the steps and then-

SHOONK!

Cethaz collapsed backwards and Aatos caught her in his arms. He looked at her, having no idea what had just happened, and what he saw horrified him. Something had pierced the front of her throat with enough force to go right through the chain armor on her neck. Blood was pouring out of her throat as she quivered in shock.

"CETHIE!" he cried as he realized what had happened. They had been so sure that the steel warrior was the final safeguard against intruders that they had let their guard down. How could they have let this happen?

Tears formed in Aatos' eyes as he took Cethaz and gently laid her down on the floor. It wasn't the most sanitary of places but he had to improvise. He removed her turban helmet and the chain coif around her neck, and took a quick look at the wound. It was bleeding a lot over her tan skin, but it didn't seem to be that deep. He began to move his hands in front of her neck and chant in Elvish. He cursed himself for not spending more time learning healing spells as a soft green glow enveloped the wound on Cethaz's throat.

He watched the wound with morbid attention as he put all of his energy into healing it. Even he didn't quite understand the mechanics of just how magic healed wounds, but he knew that Cethaz was losing blood rapidly so he had to heal her as soon as possible. He felt his strength drain from him as he put everything he had into the spell; when he felt that he was almost completely exhausted, he looked at her wound. It was much smaller than it was when he started to cast the spell, but not completely gone; the bleeding had slowed to just a trickle. Cethaz was staring at him with wide open eyes, whimpering at him. The sight of her in pain made Aatos want to break down entirely but he managed to say,

"Don't move, Cethie. Your neck is a lot better but I still need to dress the wound."

With the last bit of energy that he had, Aatos took off his pack and removed some bandages and wipes, and began to treat the wound. After he cleaned the area around it, he put some bandages on it and told Cethaz, "This is all I can do. I'm sorry, but I'm completely worn out. I need to rest now- I hope I've done enough." And then he burst into tears before he laid down beside her and fell asleep.

---------

Aatos didn't know how long he had been asleep when he woke up, but he heard Cethaz gently snoring next to him. That raised his spirits- it looked like she was going to pull through. He got up and looked at her. She hadn't moved at all, just like he had told her to.

Then he moved his eyes to the crown on the pedestal. Oh, how naive they had been! He moved over to Cethaz' battle axe and attempted to pick it up; it was difficult, but he managed to do it. He dragged it over to the pedestal, and, with great effort lifted it up and put it next to the jeweled tiara. Then he moved it towards the crown and pushed it off the pedestal's edge. After it had fallen off with a soft thunk, he steeled himself, waiting for another trap to fire. After waiting a few minutes, he was satisfied that he was safe and went over and picked up the crown.

After putting the crown in his knapsack, he went to check on Cethaz. She seemed to be doing well. Aatos was surprised at how comfortable she seemed, what with her wound and how she was sleeping in her armor, but he guessed that when one was injured, one had to get rest any way they could. He had been lucky enough never to have been hurt that badly before, although he hadn't been on too many adventures with Cethaz.

Aatos' eyes darted to Cethaz as he heard her begin to stir. He watched as she began to open her eyes. He watched as her eyelids began to flutter up and down, and after they were fully open and looking at him, he asked,

"Cethie, are you feeling better?"

She nodded her head at him. Aatos surmised that she was still unable to talk due to her throat injury.

"But you don't feel well enough to talk yet?"

Cethaz attempted to form words in her throat. After some effort, she managed to croak out,

"It's... hard."

"Then don't feel like you have to, honey. Do you feel well enough to eat?"

Cethaz thought for a second before nodding. Aatos opened his knapsack and brought out some dried persimmons. "Do you want me to help you up?"

Cethaz nodded.

Aatos took her hands in his and lifted her up to a sitting position. She grimaced just a little as he lifted her but she clearly wasn't in agony. He took one of the persimmons and moved it toward her mouth before she made a disgusted expression on her face. Then Cethaz gingerly snatched it out of his hand before popping it into her mouth. She had pain on her face as she swallowed it but she managed to get it down.

"Oh Cethie, I knew you were strong enough." Aatos hugged her. "I guess I now know why you never go on an adventure alone."

---------

Three days passed. Cethaz was back on her feet and walking, and Aatos had been at her side the entire time, except when he was foraging for food outside during the day. Cethaz had gathered some jewelry that was in the other rooms while he was out ("we're going to owe the stable owner a lot when we get back and we need something to pay him with.") The two of them were getting ready to go to sleep for the night, and they were anxious about making their return.

"Ceth, I know that you're still not feeling great, but we have to make it back to civilization sooner or later. I'm running out of berries and fruit that are around the villa, and the animals that I've been hunting with my magic are starting to become rare."

Cethaz sighed. She rasped, "I knew that we'd have to go back sooner or later. I've got a lot of aches and pains; I wish that your healing magic could deal with that."

"Yeah, all I know is basic first aid for external wounds. There are spells for internal pains but I never learned any of them- I'm not more than an apprentice mage."

Aatos went over to the pack and took out the map. "Now, we know that the dusk-apes don't leave the forest, so we don't have to take the same route out that we took going in. The part of the forest's edge that is closest to use is due south of here; we should head that way if we want to get to somewhere safe."

"Okay, that sounds like a good plan. Keep in mind that I'll be a little slow and that we don't know what the terrain around there is like."

"Yeah, I took your injuries into account. That's why I didn't just take the route that we came- we got here right at dusk and you won't be able to make it back that way in your state. Have you thought about leaving your armor here? You'd probably be faster without it."

Cethaz scowled. "Absolutely not! That's the armor of the Zalfahan city guard- I'm proud of my uniform! Plus, I'd have the cost of it taken out of my pay."

Suddenly, they heard a gibbering in the direction of the villa's entrance. They had heard it on the previous night, but it sounded a lot closer this time.

"Hold on, Ceth, I want to take a look at those dusk-apes. Don't worry about me, there'll be strong iron bars between us."

"I'm coming with you. I'm not at a hundred percent but I don't want you to go alone."

They made their way to the entrance, and peered through the grate; the gibbering was quite loud, but they couldn't see anything.

And then Aatos noticed some green eyes in the shadows under a nearby tree. They were staring at him, and he moved back from the grate as the eyes' owners started to approach. It was a bit hard for Aatos and Cethaz to see the dusk-apes in the light of the gibbous moon but they moved with their arms as well as their legs; they had large canine teeth that were almost fangs, and they screamed and banged on the bars, jumping up and down. There were only three of them and they were a bit smaller than Aatos, but they were so intimidating that Cethaz thought that even she wouldn't be a match for them in her weakened state.

"Do you think you could use your magic on them to kill them?"

"I don't think so, I doubt that my magic blasts could make it through those bars."

All of a sudden, the dusk-apes looked off at something to the left of the door, shrieked at it, and dashed off in the other direction.