Eternal Beasts

A Careful Advance

The small company stared at the space she had occupied, their thoughts spinning chaotically at the rapid unfolding of recent events.

Then Mordecai cleared his throat.

"Let's do this thing, if we're going," he rumbled. "The shadows are growing."

"Right," Seth said. He looked over at a thoughtful Timothy.

"If you would please, Master Stonefield?"

Timothy inclined his head. Then the golden cage of light of a portal spun into being around him. After exchanging a quick look, the denai war leaders stepped close to the casting wizard, weapons held ready. The three nomad pathfinders were quick to follow. Then Timothy was drawing the activation rune and the dense forest around them disappeared.

A heartbeat later a different forest appeared around them, this one feeling much more settled than the newly cleansed part they had just been in. Better yet, they could see through the massive trucks the ruins of a city nearby.

With a look at his fellow pathfinders, Seth eased forward, his bow held ready to fire if he found anything amiss. Thus prepared, he carefully moved between tree trunks that were as thick as three men standing on each other's shoulders.

Scouting ahead with that level of caution took time. So it was nearly fifteen minutes of searching every bush and shadow before Seth finally broke through the treeline and into a fairly large space. Where he immediately came to a halt, his eyes wide with wonder and astonishment.

The ancient Tuatha Fáil capital was a walled valley, just like Findias was. But that was the only thing the two places had in common. Where Findias was built over and between the rambling Shaineen Hills in the broad, flat valley that spread between the ridges, Tara Hill was built with the towering Sliabh Teamhrach, or Tara Mountain in westerling, and its sister peaks in the majestic Sleibhte na Gealai, the Mountains of the Moon, a spur of the northern muulKerath Mountains, at its heart. Luthien's throne city, in fact, was built in Teamhrach's shadow, her pools and fountains fed by the glacial waterfalls that cascaded in multitudes down the sides of the mountain.

This was the vision that greeted Seth's eyes at the treeline as he looked down onto the vale cradling the ruins of the throne city. He was sure the massive waterfalls that tumbled in silvery cascaded into deep pools that fed the rivers flowing through the ruins had names. Just as the pools themselves, the rivers, and the forest surrounding the battered but still impressive ruins, did. But those names were lost in the four thousand years since the city's fall.

All Seth knew was that he was looking at obstacles to overcome to reach the city and it's hidden Master Library.

"Luthien's throne city?" Phineas asked in a low voice as he eased up on Seth's right. Mordecai, a heartbeat later, appeared on his left.

"As far as I can tell," Seth replied in the same voice without taking his eyes off the ruin and its stunning backdrop.

"We're on a bit of a ridge here," Mordecai observed, also speaking quietly. "Either of you see a way down?"

The three took a moment to scan the space in between their location and the ruins. Then it was Phineas that was pointing to a regular path through the trees. Together they backtracked it to the ridge's foot. Where Mordecai pointed to the beginning of a switch back style path that appeared to climb the ridge face.

Lifting their heads, the veteran pathfinders scanned the forest to their right. And it wasn't long before Seth spotted the old marker obelisk, leaning almost drunkenly against one of the towering tree trunks.

A quick gesture pointed it out to the other two. Then he was looking behind them to the three denai war leaders that had finally caught up to them, the armored warriors carefully kneeling in a cluster protectively around their wizard five paces back.