The Arkanist

The Black Ring

The Black Ring

Aera followed Ollor back through the wending underwalks. The cold and dark ways of stone dripped with a dreary dampness and the torches upon the carved walls stood on scones and horns, flickering. The flickering sped to a flutter as Aera passed by them, warming her skin in intervals of heat and cold. The influx of temperature made her heat ache and her eyes feel odd. She found they traveled through those tunnels for a while, until, at last, a pale white light peeked through the iron doors up ahead.

         Soon after they were out of the underwalks, Ollor was greeted by a fellow ranger. He looked concerned, and had a large axe in his hand, dull and grey. It needed sharpening. His words were rushed, and seemed to be thought of before hand. Though Ollor calmed him, and told him what had happened in Iurn. The ranger’s expression darkened, and he drove his axe into the snowy dirt.

         “There’s a storm approaching, Ollor,” he said, walking away, shaking his head. “And we’re not ready for it.”

         Ollor showed Aera to the tower where she’d be staying. It was in the western corner of the fortress, built into the mountainside. The stone was grey and washed pale with a fresh blanket of snow dazzling in the pale light of the torches. It was small, but wide with a great turreted tops, and two towers springing like arms off its sides. A writhing black flag stood atop the tower, the pole fastened down into the turret. At the base, the snow had began to wall the squared tower, and a path had been shoveled to the entrance where a great wooden door stood, the color drained so that it was a faded brown. Two pedestals flanked the door, holding orange flames that burned away the cold. 

         Inside the tower there was a central common, with a curving staircase that rose off next to the entrance. A massive hearth breathed red in the heart of the commons, where several rangers were huddled, their gloves strewn across the stone floor, where pelts of bears and snow leopards laid as carpet. With the crackling hearth, small oil lanterns adorned the walls, two to each, and above the door, Aera saw the head of a monstrous snowlion, fangs as large as swords with a pelt of pure white and a mane of ice. Whoever had slayed that beast, was likely respected as a hero and valiant warrior.

         The snowlion, Aera knew, were specific to the Mountains of Svaerdon, and lived in the deep caverns it held in the peaks of range. There was a time even, long ago, when the Bearivians, the barbarians from the far north worshipped the animals and brought them down south with them, and so they came to live in these mountains. The barbarians conducted rituals, sometimes even with magic, when they would bind the power of the animal into their own body or even, to extremes, send to soul of the beast to join their own, so that they could become a snowlion as well. It was a dangerous and dark business, but the barbarians knew no better.

         Ollor led the way up the wrapping staircase, rising slowly, until, they were nearly at the top, and he turned off the stairs when they reached a solid stone floor where five doors surrounded the open space where in the center, a fire burned on a plush carpet. Aera’s room was the second door on the right, and when she entered, she felt a cold rush over her. Covering her face with the color of her cloak, she turned to look at Ollor.

         “It might not be warm, or welcoming, but it’s home nonetheless.” His voice was hard. “In about an hour, make for the Black Hall. The name describes itself. There, I will meet you, and there you will eat your dinner. On the morrow, you’ll have your iniciation, which I will show you to, but I may not enter. That much is between you and Varud.”

         Ollor closed the door and Aera was alone, again. Her room was small and grey, with a single thin window and small thin bed with a stiff matress and fur blankets for the night. A dresser was filled with black cloaks and gloves and breeches, and a table was set with a lonely chair and grey curl of parchment and a quill and ink. A black waxen candle stood on the table, tears of wax hardening on the wood. Over the bed, a pair of torches licked at the wall, and in the corner, a small, feeble hearth that flickered pale and burned like a sick child, sniffling.