THE TALE OF ISA
A SHORT STORY
The following is a short story about Isa, a Cartanian girl destined to free her people from slavery by the Etaii race. Follow her on her quest to be the Chosesn.
Isa entered the tunnel maze because she felt duty bound. Her people had long suffered at the hands of the Etaii masses and nothing could ever be done...until now. The head matron of Isa's clan had a vision...a prophecy. In it, she saw where the Etaii's power arose from; a chasm of infinite depth that surged with energy and empowered those who would gaze and pray over it. She saw one of her people, a saviour, capping this power for all time and releasing them from torment. Isa knows that she is the one, the chosen.
Isa changes her skin to camouflage against the surrounding stone, but can she finish in time?
Isa has evaded detection in the mazes, but the gain she has made has been long and hard fought. Every step she takes echoes down the dark passages and her senses are keen on the smells of dank stone and fluttering movements of shadows around her.
She had been following a narrow tunnel for some distance. Sensing, then seeing a glow ahead, she cautiously enters a huge chamber. The walls have a slight film on them that doesn't glow but gives off a dim amount of light, enough to see clearly into the room. It's huge and old and long forgotten; mice scamper across the stones and the debris is everywhere. Old coffins and a tomb bespeak of its former use...no longer needed.
Isa has entered the room when she sees..no, feels, the presence of someone else...
While Isa is silently finding her way through the underground maze to save her people from slavery and torment, the Forgotten trudge toward their calling.
The Troll Clan, called the Forgotten, because they are seldom seen and the fabric of legends, had assembled two moons before during a solstice tribe gathering. The elders and shamaan read the bones of the long dead and foresaw that the hole in the world was nearing its end. The energy hole, that for eons had ruled the underground and pulled the good from the Earth was about to cease. The Forgotten had guarded the Pudella Quandary since the beginning of their recorded history. Now was the time to bury it with the closing of the hole.
Guartoon and his faithful labor towards Isa and the Undgerground.
As the Troll clan faithful neared the place of the hole in the Earth, the scar that pulls the good from all that lives, the Pudella Quandary started to vibrate. Guartoon knew that they were not near enough for this to happen...what then could be the cause. Then he saw it, a distant rider with a sick, red aura, that Trolls can see, enveloping it; evil in the flesh.
It was Chortfae riding on her charger, sure in her superiority and complete dominance of all others. Living off the lives of others and making deals with the Etaii to the detriment of her people. Her time on Earth is about to end.
Trolls do not involve themselves in the troubles and ills of other races or take vengence but this time in space called for intervention. It was written. Guartoon points an accusing finger at Chortfae just before meting out her final judgement.
The Troll clan faithful are nearing the end of their long journey. They have arrived at the Etaii gateway, the portal into the tunnel maze that Isa entered the day before. Deep below ground, in that maze, is the hole that drains the Earth; the hole that shall be closed.
Ark, the herbalist's firstborn offspring, has been trained to read the signs. Before entering the tunnels, he stops to see if the Earth energies will permit safe passage and completion of their task.
After having entered the glowing chamber, Isa can detect no way out. The thought of wasting time backtracking through the tunnels she just left behind fuels an anger that seethes within her.
Isa feels a presence behind her the moment before she spins to face it, pulling her sword from its leathers in the same movement. What she sees frightens her but the warrior in her stands firm, facing a glowing, shifting face, spewing glowing flecks. The face had no body, jutting from the wall, but it was intelligent and trying to speak to her.
Awed, Isa could suddenly understand, without voice, what the being was attempting to say. He was Ryentaan, banished to this room for a hundred years by the Etaii. The room glowed from his effervescent travels around and around the room; trapped. He no longer had a body nor would he at the end of his time here, he wished to be free, to die. Isa, he knew, could help him by closing the hole in the Earth. It would destroy the Etaii and break the binds that held him here.
Ryentaan shows Isa the secret door hidden behind the iron gate that seems to lead nowhere. She must open it and go that way to her destiny.
Guartoon of the Forgotten leads the Faithful through an old, abandonned section of the Etaii tunnels. The Pudella Quandry sensed its opening soon after they had entered the tunnel system. This should provide them with safe passage to the scar in world, the hole that drains good from life. They are stronger than the Etaii but too few in numbers to arrive safely using the newer sections. The journey will soon be over.
Isa has finally found her way through the Etaii tunnel maze to the entrance of the chamber to the hole in Earth. What lies before her is her destiny but she knows not the full truth of it yet. Surveying the scene before her, she spies a harmless looking monk, a drawbridge and the golden doors into the chamber.
Isa understands that she must fly across the divide to enter the golden doors. What she does not know yet is that she must lower the drawbridge for The Forgotten to use and that the monk is not as harmless as he appears.
So close to her goal, Isa sweeps out into the void above the black lava moat that surrounds that cavern where she must close the hole in the Earth. The feeling of impending victory and relief at the ease of her quest leads her into a false sense of protection. She does not ask herself why there are no guards patrolling the gates nor why a lonely monk would be chanting outside its perimeter. After all, he looks to be either human or a type of sapien and probably another captive of the Etaii, tethered by a spell he can not break.
The monk spies Isa the moment she enters the open and lifts off into the void. He is not a true monk, nor human either, being an elder of the Tava magi and wizard class. He quickly searches for other intuders and seeing none, decides to bring down this lone flyer with very little effort as he has so much to do and not in the mood for sport. He could easily raise the spirits of a thousand black lava lizards to do his bidding, but this intrusion is irritating to him and he's so very sure of his skill that he prepares just one to meet her and draw the life essense from her as she flies. He must attend to other things.
Isa is caught by surprise as, what she took to be a monk, proves to be an enemy. A dragon creature spirit has been cast toward her and she barely has time to take action. She immediately employs her chameleon charm and tries to become invisible by blending with colors of the surrounding rocks and darkness. Her change is not fast enough and occurs just as the spirit reaches within a sword's breath of her. Though she spins out of the way, her legs and part of a wing are touched by its passing fingerling essence trail. The effect is immediate and it is all she can do to call enough strength to drift unseen to the edge of the cliff.
Believing that the intruder has been vaporized, the Tava elder continues his work. Isa lies panting near the drawbridge, forcing herself to take each breath. She is so close to the end but only wants to close her eyes.
Isa lay gasping for breath after being wounded by a black lava lizard and falling to the other side of the chasm. All she wants to do is sleep. There is no pain anymore as the swirling in her head lulls her into its depths.
Suddenly, she is aware of an energy...calling her. The pain returns, the aching in her side and the hole rent through her by the lizard spirit bring tears back into her eyes. She can not resist this pulsing energy, driving her to rise. It is the Pudella Quandary nearing the chasm, brought by the Trolls...calling, calling. Once on her feet she, a determination to finish her task comes over her and she stumbles to the gates that lock away the hole in the Earth.
Every ounce of Isa's ebbing strength is directed at her one final act of heroism. She finds the lock mechanism to lower the drawbridge which is tied with thick ropes and sets about cleaving through them and frees the lock. The bridge barely makes a sound as it settles across the expanse.
Isa realizes that she must relieve the world of the Tava Magi wizard or the energy nearing her, the Pudella Quandary, will not be able to pass into the chamber. The magi would defend the entrance with his life. She does not know of the Pudella Quandary but she can sense that this is what she must do. Isa cloaks herself and struggles toward the wizard.
Isa uncloaks as she stands behind the Tava Magi wizard and calls to him. Surprised, then angry, he starts to conjure another lava dragon as Isa severes his life from him. This is all that was left of Isa. She, the Chosen, had completed her duty to her people and the Earth.
The Trolls appear in the chamber, carrying the Pudella Quandary and cross the drawbridge. Ark, the herbalist's firstborn offspring stops to sense life in the broken and still form of Isa. There is none. She will not be forgotten.
Guartoon led his followers past the lifeless body of Isa, young Arc lagging behind to record the image in his memory. They passed the huge mechanisms created to raise and lower the drawbridge and entered through the golden gates protecting the inner gallery of fake tunnels. These were constructed to confuse those not belonging to the priest class, who might venture this far. Many dead ends and bottomless pits met those who dared to enter univited.
None of this mattered to Guartoon, as the Pudella Quandary was humming and slightly vibrating, showing the way to the correct entrance. The procession was thus lead down the last tunnel to their ultimate destination, the hole in the Earth, that drained good from the world and gave the Etaii their strength.
Guartoon was an unusually intelligent Troll and stronger than most. He had been chosen to lead the followers to this place and the responsibility fell on him to see it to its end. Joscquer and Trufla' helped to heave the now uncontrollable Pudella Quandary into Guartoon's arms. The hole below was starting to boil and brew, throwing fumes and sparks onto the followers; many cringing from their burn. Moving forward to the hole, Guartoon could barely hold onto the Pudella Quandary as it vibrated and started to emit heat. Raising it above his head with every ounce of his strength, the strength of ten mortal men, he held it high and uttered the words he was taught by the Elders.
As he sang out the oath to the ancients, ending his final task and the commitment of the Trolls to safeguard the Pudella Quandary, the hole erupted in a storm of unforseen fury. Energy pulsed from the Pudella Quanary to the ceiling coils and into the fiery gale emitted from the hole. The two danced and twined, the heat of which put Guartoon, a Troll amoung Trolls, to his rest. Flesh and armour melted and fused into one and became ash in that one moment in time. His spirit rose with the Pudella Quandary's energy and that strong and mighty Troll accompanied the Pudella into the depths of the hole.
For a moment all was quiet. The burnt and singed Followers, stunned into silence, no screams left for their voices, no sensible thoughts in their heads. In another instant the entire cave and tunnel system started to shake. The hole was closing and that closing was bringing down this network of tunnels, built by the Etaii. Boulders, carvings and brickwork, all falling into the abyss.
Prolouge. Arc, the herbalist's son, the lone survivor of an epic to be told and retold for generations, trudged into camp during the night of the new moon. He had grown into a warrior during this journey and a good and just Troll. He would tell the tale of Isa and the bravery of Guartoon and their legends would live on.