Jerrick's head throbbed when he awoke from his nap. He had unintentionally fell asleep when he had sat at the trunk of a maple tree. He now wondered what had woken him up, for he was sure he had heard something that had startled him from his slumber.
As if in answer to this query, a cry came from down the hill toward the forest. He looked down to see Elimere and a small boy running toward him.
"Jerrick! Where's Aragus?" she said urgently.
"I dont know," Jerrick replied truthfully, standing up. "Why?"
"It's a long story," she said quickly. "Come with us if you want. I need to find Aragus."
Jerrick fell in behind them and followed them up the hill toward the Council House. The Council House stood at the very top of the hill, at the spot just before the hill sloped steeply upward. It much reminded Jerrick of the old monastery in Largone, made of rough, gray stones, and covered with colorful stainglass windows. Jerrick had been told that this was the building where the Council - the seven men chosen by the valteri to be in command beneath the Head Valterus, which was now Aragus - met up for meetings and votings. Jerrick, who had never been in the Council House before, was startled when Elimere walked right up to the door and slammed the knocker hurriedly.
The door creaked open to reveal Reirdan staring anxiously at them.
"What's wrong, Elimere?" he muttered.
"I need to speak to Aragus," she said breathlessly.
Reirdan looked from Elimere to the small boy and to Jerrick. Then he looked back at Elimere and said: "Come on in, all three of you."
Elimere stepped in, whispering hurriedly to Reirdan, and Jerrick and the boy followed close behind. They entered a small room that reminded Jerrick still more of the monastery at Largone. It was very small and was inhabited by only a small table against the right wall. A door to the far right was ajar, revealing a set of narrow stairs that likely led up to the steeple. Straight ahead of them stood two large, thick doors curved to a point. Their surface was covered with carvings, but Jerrick did not have enough time to study them before Reirdan unceremoniously pushed the doors open.
Jerrick, Elimere, and the young boy, whose name was still unknown to Jerrick, followed closely behind Reirdan, but stopped nervously when they found themselves under the focus of more than twenty shocked eyes. They now stood before a large, rectangualr table filled with people whom Jerrick guessed to be the Council.
"Sorry to intrude," Reirdan grunted in a tone that made it obvious that he was not sorry at all. "But I believe Elimere has something urgent to say."
Jerrick turned his eyes from the Council and looked toward Elimere, who cleared her throat in hesitation.
"Council," she began. "What Rierdan says is correct, for I do have something a great urgency that I have come to relay to you. Last night, as you all know, Jerrick spoke to Gladar himself in the--"
"We know nothing of the sort," a middle-aged, sharp-looking woman interrupted. She stared venomously at Jerrick, as if accusing him of something. "We know only what this boy told us. He could be lying for all we know!"
"I am not lying!" bursted Jerrick, surprising even himself.
"Anyway," Elimere said firmly, her eyes flashing back and forth from Jerrick to the woman, "I was in the forest earlier today and--"
"And what exactly were you doing in there, may I dare ask?" asked a large man with a thick gray mustache above his red lips. "Beyond the bridge is out of bounds for all children under eighteen!"
YOU ARE READING
SCARRED; The Dark Tower
FantasyA boy born with a strange scar on his neck; a young woman who wants nothing but to find her lost brother; a man whose life was torn away from him years ago; a young girl who has been treated like an outsider her whole life; a teenage girl who has be...
