Kelven's Riddle: The Mountain at the Middle of the World Read online

  Going back into the foyer of the armory, he cleared the table of debris, collected the good spears and several of the swords and sorted his cache of weaponry. He had all the swords he could use and he found several beside the first one that fit his hand nicely. There were no scabbards to be found, of course, but he felt certain he could devise something that would serve for that purpose. He had twelve usable spears besides countless spear points and arrowheads. Arming himself with two of the best spears and two swords, he went back down through the shadowed city toward the great hall at the front. His spirits and his confidence had risen dramatically with the miraculous discovery of weapons. As he negotiated the ancient streets, armed with the ancient steel, he felt almost like a warrior.

  The city had been laid out amazingly well. Beside every street and alley ran gutters for shedding excess rain after it had been captured and distributed throughout the city’s system of conduits. During the day the light from the sun was diffused brilliantly throughout all the levels of the city and yet the deep, narrow streets were shaded from the full force of its might. At the moment, the sun had slipped behind the great mountain and evening filled the city.

  As he approached the great porch, Aram moved carefully, easing along walls and peering around corners and out through the arches at the valley beyond. If at all possible, he was never going to be caught off guard again. Standing in the main hall at the front of the city, he practiced some thrusting and parrying movements with one of the swords and then did the same with a spear. Hopefully, the wolves would not return to the cave in the rubble today, but if they did, he wanted to be reasonably ready to defend himself.

  As evening deepened toward twilight, he eased out across the pavement of the great porch and across the bridge to the pillared railing at the center of the defensive wall where he could look out over the valley. A pair of hawks wheeled in the sky and smaller birds twittered in the trees as they began to settle in for the night. As he stood gazing across the broad, darkening expanse of meadows and trees and streams, his eye caught a movement out on the main avenue leading through the ruined gardens.

  Black objects came purposefully toward the city. The objects came rapidly onward until they were close enough that he recognized their shapes. Wolves. They were trotting single file up the cobbled road toward their lair under the south steps. As they reached the point where Aram had dug the roots earlier in the day, the lead wolf, a great shaggy beast, abruptly veered off into the grass beside the avenue and began eagerly sniffing the ground, emitting urgent yelps and short, deep, growling barks. The others joined him and together they began to track Aram’s scent toward the south steps.

  There were five wolves in all, two of them substantially larger than the others. It was not a large pack, but seeing them at such close range, Aram realized he was not ready to take them on in the open. Having found his scent, they would undoubtedly track him into the city and hunt him. He needed to quickly find a means of preventing them from cornering him inside.

  He had only a few minutes before they tracked him into the city, and the slipping of the sun over the edge of the world beyond the mountain had cast the vaulted streets and byways into deep shadow. He thought about defending the narrow steps to the dais in the great hall or making a stand at the entrance to the armory, but neither of those options gave him the ability to flee if things went badly. Besides, the possession of quality weaponry had altered his thinking in a fundamental way. No longer did he just want to defend himself; he wanted to drive the evil beasts from the city he’d discovered and adopted as his own.

  Then, like an unexpected flash of lightning out of a clear sky, the answer came to him. He needed to kill the biggest wolf, the head of the pack.

  If such a deed could be accomplished, it would demoralize the others or at least make them less inclined to take him on in a straightforward assault. To turn this inspiration into execution, however, he would have to find a way to ambush them and draw first blood in a surprise attack.

  As he moved quickly deeper into the city, he inspected all the narrow alleyways running crossways to the main streets. He decided that if he could find just the right spot, he would leave his fresh scent going straight into the city along a narrow street and then swing around and launch an attack from a side alley as the wolves went past. But it needed to be a position from which he could make a tactical retreat as well, if necessary.

  Two-thirds of the way up the street that ran beside the granary, he found a spot that would serve his intended purpose. There was a narrow, guttered alley that ran behind the granary at right angles from the street on the south that went toward the armory to the wider avenue on the north that ran straight back into the city between the granary and the first row of magnificent mansions.

  Immediately he put his plan into motion. He could already hear the excited yelps of the wolves as they ascended the south steps. He ran up the street between the mansions and the granary making sure to leave his scent on the left side so it would draw his prey right by the entrance to the narrow alley. Then he doubled back by the armory and into the alley that connected the two streets. He’d had no time to practice hurling a spear but now he practiced the motion over and over until it felt right. He crept along the guttered alleyway until he came to within a step of the opening to the street. The street was dark but the alley was darker—he believed that they would not see him until it was too late. He leaned his left side against the wall and practiced thrusting the point of the spear toward the gap.

  Finally, he heard the wolves baying as they caught his fresh scent and came rushing up through the city. His heart was in his throat, and his whole body quivered in grim anticipation of the conflict to come but he didn’t for a moment consider running away. He was determined not to give up control of the city to merciless beasts like the ones who’d killed his friend. He’d spent the last two or three weeks fleeing a deadly variety of threats and dangers. Now, he was through running.

  A few minutes later he heard the thrumming of padded feet in the street and the eager yelping drew nearer. His muscles taut with apprehension, he eased closer to the exit from the alley and cocked his arm. He intended to be close enough to thrust the spear directly into flesh rather than to simply throw it. If he could impale one of the wolves, preferably the largest one, at the gap leading into the alley, he would have time to escape to the armory and shut the door, leaving the rest of the pack to ponder the lethal nature of the enemy they were facing.

  The passage of the front wolf caught him off guard as it went rushing up the street at an incredible speed. Fearing to let any more get past him, he leapt forward and thrust the spear out through the gap with all his might, plunging it deep into the neck of the wolf behind. What occurred next stunned and shocked him. In an instant of the wolf’s anguished howl of pain, the other four, ignoring the spear and leaving off pursuit of Aram’s scent, fell upon the fallen animal and began tearing its flesh as it died. Aram stood for a moment, watching in astonished immobility. He’d assumed that the wolves were intelligent hunters—deadly predators who hunted with common purpose—now he saw sudden and shocking evidence that they were nothing more than mindless, vicious carnivores. Not one of them looked at him, so busy were they consuming their compatriot, as he backed carefully away.

  Regaining the street below the armory he began sprinting in that direction, but then slowed. Something about the affair troubled him. In the midst of success, he felt that his victory was incomplete and he wanted more. He stopped at the steps to the armory and considered the situation. The killing of the wolf had not been exceptionally difficult. The spear had penetrated deep into the wolf’s body with surprising ease. Thinking about it, he suddenly felt superior, not like the cornered quarry defending itself but more like the predator, able to inflict death at his own volition. And then something else occurred to him; he needed to retrieve the spear that he’d used to slay the wolf. Until he learned to make more, each of those weapons was precious.

  Hol
ding his sword at the ready in one hand and the second spear in the other, he eased back down the street in the deepening twilight, listening to the sounds of savagery emanating from the scene of the kill. If they would willfully cannibalize one of their own without giving thought as to why it bled and died, they were the most mindless of all beasts and deserved annihilation. The darkness increased as he drew nearer and the noise from the barbaric feast was dying down. Before he made it all the way back to the alley, silence had fallen. He moved cautiously forward with the sword in his left hand and the spear cocked in his right, but nothing moved in the shadowed streets.

  When he came to the entrance to the alley, he peered cautiously around the corner before entering, but he could see no movement at the other end. He crept along it until he gained the street where he’d killed the wolf. The remains of the animal lay heaped in a steaming, stinking mass of hair and bone and entrails. Its compatriots had engorged themselves and left. They were nowhere in sight. Still, Aram was anxious to make sure they’d left the city completely. And if the twilight held a bit longer he actually wanted to kill more of them if an opportunity was presented. They had trespassed and committed an unfathomable atrocity in what he now considered his city.

  Moving carefully east, street by street, down through the city, he finally reached the great porch. The last remnant of the setting sun was coloring the tips of the highest peaks that rose above the forested hills to the east and the valley was plunged into the deep shadow cast by the mountain behind him. Slipping across the pavement to the railing, he crouched and listened. From the area down near the rubble by the south steps, he heard the wolves sporting amongst themselves in the quiet of the evening. He dared not attack them in the open, especially in darkness, so he decided to sleep in the armory where he would be safe and plan a new course of action on the morrow.

  He slipped back up through the dark streets, entered the armory, shut the door, and stacked crates filled with swords before it. Then, suddenly spent from the exertion and despite the excitement that still crackled along his nerve endings, he stretched out on the stone table in the anteroom and fell asleep.

  When dawn came, he opened the armory door carefully and heard in the distance the snarling of the remaining wolves fighting over the carcass of their fallen companion. Suppressing a shudder at the thought of such vile behavior, he decided he would try to kill another. He picked up four spears, including the one he’d retrieved the night before and eased out into the city. Reaching the guttered alleyway, he saw that the largest wolf had dragged some of the carcass back into the narrow defile and was gnawing on the bones and flesh of its former companion with its back to him.

  All right then, Aram thought, you might as well be next. Crouching low and moving with extreme caution, he slipped carefully up behind the shaggy black monster and drew back the spear. Just as he was about to release it, one of the smaller wolves looked into the alley and saw him.

  The smaller wolf howled and the large one turned its head toward Aram. Instantly the wolf leapt to its feet, snarling, but the alley was too narrow for it to turn its body, so Aram quickly thrust the spear with all his might into its back. The point entered the wolf’s body just in front of its rear haunches and hobbled it. Nonetheless, the beast was able to exit the alley and turn to face its attacker, snarling and slobbering in its fury. But Aram’s blood was up and he hurled another spear into the wolf’s face. This one went straight into the beast’s open mouth and through the soft tissue at the back of its throat and Aram saw the light of life go out of its eyes as the steel pierced the base of its brain.

  That was enough for the three smaller wolves. Howling in fear, they sprang away down the street out of the city. Aram leapt over the twitching body of his latest kill and pursued them but, run as he might, he could not catch them. Again he found himself longing for a bow and arrow.

  When they had cleared the city and descended the steps, the three wolves made for the lair in the rubble. After sniffing around there for a few moments with small whines of uncertainty, and seeing Aram charging down upon them with the dreaded steel, they ran out onto the broad avenue and made for the open valley beyond. Aram sat down on the rubble and watched them go.

  Only then did it occur to him that the wolves had been a family unit and by a stroke of luck, he’d been able to kill both parents. He thought about the four of them consuming with ravenous savagery an animal that had been both a mate and a parent and shuddered. What vile beasts behaved in such a manner? Somehow, he thought, the malignant hand of a great evil must have touched their species and reduced them. No normal beast would act in such a despicable way. Sitting there in the expanding light and warmth of the morning, having regained his city, he vowed to be an enemy of wolves forever.

  VI

  After a while, he went out into the valley below the walls and ate a breakfast of sweetroot. Now that hunger was no longer a pressing issue, he found that the root—though he was still grateful for its plentiful existence in the valley—was becoming substantially less desirable as a daily fare. He decided that after removing the dead carcasses of the wolves from the city, he would spend his time trying to improve his diet.

  For several days following the slaying of the wolves, Aram made a methodical and careful survey of the grand avenue, the courtyard and the ruined gardens, and the surrounding fields and groves of trees. It was obvious that at one time in the remote past this had all been rich and carefully tended ground. The trees were now not much more than stands of thicketed brush and having grown untended for countless years were full of dead branches and unproductive growth. Some species were in bloom and others were already forming small green fruit. With care, they would no doubt someday produce in abundance.

  Sweetroot grew in thick patches beneath the trees. There were vine plants in bloom and Aram decided to weed around them and see what sort of fruit was produced. He also found scattered clumps of grass that resembled wheat. He decided to cultivate it and see whether or not it produced heads of grain. If it did, he would turn over an open area of earth and sow it in larger patches the next year. He enjoyed the novel feeling of proprietorship he was beginning to have over this land. For it was his land. Not once did he discover any signs of another human presence.

  As he explored further afield, he carried two spears and a sword, in case he encountered wolves or other threats. Often, during his forays out into the valley, he came across the ruins of buildings tucked into folds of the hills or situated on high points above running water. No doubt they had once been productive farms and again he wondered about the nature of the disaster that had emptied this rich land of its people.

  On the level plain before the great city, there was a major thoroughfare of stone that extended from the walls of the city straight out for about two miles where it intersected another main road running north and south. On each corner of the intersection stood a pyramid, each about a hundred feet square and sixty or so feet high. He examined them closely on several occasions but could find no entrance into them. Their significance remained obscure.

  The valley between the city and the forested hills to the east was rolling and green, cut by many streams from the springs that issued forth from the mountain and fed into the river. The river wound gently through this broad land and it was obvious to Aram from the many stone walls and ruined structures scattered about the long, broad valley near to the city that it had once been full of prosperous farms. Now, it was all a gentle but overgrown wilderness.

  He estimated the distance from the city to the eastern hills as being about ten or twelve miles. It was about five or six miles south to the river that entered the mountain in the siphon and the spiny ridge that separated the valley from the rolling hills to the south. Northward, the valley stretched away for perhaps twenty miles or more, growing gradually narrower and rougher until it mingled with rocky, timbered foothills that increased in size as they rose toward distant snowcapped gray peaks.

  On the west, the valley was b
ounded by the great mountain that had appeared black as coal when he had viewed it from even further to the west in the fields of his enslavement. Seen from this side where the city had been carved from its living rock, its basic elements were the color of gold and rose, especially in the morning sun, and only took on a blacker aspect as it rose up to the heights.

  He occasionally saw deer but not nearly as many as he thought there should be in a valley so filled with natural feed. He attributed this fact to the number of wolf tracks that he encountered. Wolves were obviously the major predators in the valley. As he roamed farther away from the city, he encountered tracks that were much larger than those left by the three young wolves that had escaped him. As a consequence, he took his weaponry regimen seriously, using an old dead tree just to the south of the city steps for his training, hacking it into kindling with thrusts and blows from his sword.

  He spent his days expanding the perimeters of his knowledge of the countryside and his evenings sorting through the various deadly bits of steel in the armory. He now had seventeen good spears, thousands of arrow points and countless steel swords. One day, while sorting through crates in the back of the sword room he found something that filled him with joy. It was a box of knives and daggers. All the handles were missing their wood or leather elements and had been reduced to raw steel, but other than that they were in excellent shape. Now he possessed ancillary weapons that he could slip through his belt for use in extremity or as tools.

  The swords that came into his possession were of various lengths and he preferred one of medium size. He practiced striking and thrusting at the old tree, and though he knew nothing of the formal use of a blade, he soon felt sure that he could kill as easily with a blade as with a spear.

  On stormy or rainy days, he explored the city. The making of it had been a magnificent achievement, and he constantly wondered what catastrophic event had occurred to drive its makers from it. It had, he believed, probably been war because of the damage to the defensive structures along the city’s front. But if it had been war, why hadn’t the victors stayed and enjoyed the spoils of their conquest?