“And there is nothing I can say that will change your mind?” asked Teleri upon Friedrich explaining his nightmare from the previous night and that he and Marina had agreed to find the hammer from Elketh’s tale.

“Nope,” said Friedrich, shaking his head. He was still shaken by the strange occurrence in a way that he couldn’t fully put into words now that the morning had come, but he was resolute in his decision.

Teleri sighed and wrinkled her brow. “Then I suppose I am left with no choice. You are a fool, of course, Friedrich. I think that this is the most stupid and dangerous idea you have had so far, and that does include trusting Namavar to follow through on his deal.”

“Yes, I know. In my defence, I didn’t expect him to follow through, but he played us well and I lowered my guard.”

“But the outcome was not in our favour in the least. The measures you had to take to remedy the situation were drastic, warranted or otherwise.”

“You’re right,” Friedrich agreed. The amount of blood on his hands could be measured in buckets.

“And you still will not reconsider?”

“I will not.”

“And you will not tell me why?”

“Does the reason matter if my mind is made up?”

“I suppose not, no.”

Friedrich smiled at her. “In that case, shall we get going?”

“Where do we even start?” asked Marina as she checked her bag to make sure she still had all of her spell tomes.

“I thought about that a lot last night when I was trying to get back to sleep,” said Friedrich. “If there is anyone who would know where there’s a hammer then it would be—”

“Wait,” said Teleri, holding up an index finger. “Do you not remember the song?”

“Something about a man with a hammer and it being somewhere on the island.”

“That is not what he said in his tale.”

“It wasn’t?” asked Marina.

“No,” said Teleri. “He said that the man had a war hammer and was a smith. He also said that the man tried to mend a powerful artifact and it is in an ancient temple somewhere here. And within a hand.”

“How did you remember that?” asked Friedrich.

“After the last tale he told us, I made sure to listen much more carefully. I even noted what I could remember down when I had a spare moment. To say that it made sense to me, would of course be a lie.”

“And I’m very glad you took note of it,” sighed Friedrich. “If I had asked Suljah about a hammer, we would have gotten nowhere.”

“Suljah?” asked Marina. The man who takes care of the Watcher of Kai’roh?”

“Yes,” said Friedrich. “If there is anyone who would know about ancient temples and hammers…or lack of hammers, then it would be him. He’s also one of very few people we know in Kai’roh.”

Teleri nodded in agreement, but she still thought the entire plan was dangerously foolish. “Then let us restock our rations, refill our water and start moving. I would like to get this over with quickly rather than prolong my impending death.”

“You really are a moaner, aren’t you?” asked Friedrich, his lip curled into a slight smile.

Teleri’s jaw dropped, affronted by this comment. Friedrich’s consistent teasing was irritating beyond belief, and this one stung so much because she knew it was true. She turned her nose up and looked away, silently seething at Friedrich’s words.

*

The Watcher of Kai’roh grew ever closer as the party of adventurers wandered across the sun-soaked sands. They did not know whether or not Suljah would even be here today, but they had also agreed to wait for as long as it took for him to show up—even if that meant waiting until their food ran out. At least it was a fairly short walk back to Port Balsia.

“Is that him?” asked Marina, squinting through the mirage.

“No,” said Teleri, “that is a large stone.”

“Oh.”

Friedrich bounded on ahead as a fox and transformed back to normal upon reaching the enormous pedestal upon which the colossus stood. He had no real need to do it, but his padded fox feet almost glided along the sand, compared to his boot-clad human feet which tended to sink where the softer sand rested. He lay down and rubbed his eyes as he stared at the clear blue sky. He had slept for no more than two hours and he was exhausted, yet he could not let himself sleep.

When Teleri and Marina caught up to him, they took refuge in the shadow of the statue’s leg. Teleri sat and stared quietly into the distance while Marina pulled out her latest spell tome and read about how she would be able to conjure a lightning elemental.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Any luck?” asked Friedrich.

“I only just started reading it,” said Marina without looking up.

“I was just wondering.”

“Well, wonder quietly. This is important.”

Friedrich sat up and tapped his fingers on the pedestal while looking across the sands. It had been no more than thirty seconds and he was already getting impatient. Back home in Mercia, he found it relaxing to sit and listen to the trickling of a fountain or the shuffling and murmuring of the crowds passing by, but here, there was only silence and the heat was stifling.

“So, what’s it like in Alauria?” he asked Teleri.

“Warm, yet cooling,” she replied before fanning her face with her hand.

“I’m trying to read!” snapped Marina.

“He asked me a question,” replied Teleri coldly.

“I’ll be quiet,” said Friedrich, lying back down as Teleri muttered a couple of unpleasantries under her breath.

The young man stared up at the statue’s distant chin and hummed quietly to himself the Ode to the Mercian Lord, an old wartime battle poem that was sung when soldiers marched away from their keeps, heading towards a skirmish. Friedrich knew it well. So well, that even a bout amnesia wouldn’t remove it from his head.

He rolled onto his side and stared at Marina whose mouth was moving at a hundred miles per hour, yet not as much as a whisper escaped. After a while, he turned his attention to Teleri who was playing some strange game with her hands where she wiggled her fingers and interlocked them before pulling them apart. Upon noticing the watchful Mercian, she stopped and returned to looking over the sands.

“There,” said Teleri, pointing towards a speck in the distance.

Friedrich bolted upright. “Are you sure that’s him?” he asked, squinting hard as he tried to make out the moving black dot.

“You think me a bat?” asked Teleri haughtily. “Of course, I am certain.”

Marina shut her book and placed it within her bag. She moved closer to Friedrich and Teleri, and the three watched as Suljah drew closer and closer. Teleri was correct and Friedrich apologised for even questioning her eyesight which was met with a faint smile of satisfaction.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” called Suljah, holding out a hand in greeting as he neared his beloved statue.

“Hello, Suljah,” said Marina brightly and bowing her head respectfully.

“I have a question for you,” said Friedrich, wanting to get straight to the point.

Suljah looked surprised. “Ah, you do? It did not take long for you to return here, so it must be urgent. Truth be told, I thought it would be years before you had a question you truly wanted to ask.”

“We’re trying to find something…or someone,” said Friedrich.

“Which is it? Those are two different things.”

“We’re not quite sure,” said Marina, cocking her head to the side and biting her lower lip. “There’s a song that might help. I’ve taken to calling it the Song of the Smith.”

“Let me hear it,” said Suljah, walking over to the base of the statue and sitting down. “I love poetry. It is music at its most raw and meaningful. The words can filter through your soul and awaken something deep within that you never even knew existed.”

“We don’t remember the song,” said Friedrich, looking towards Teleri.

“I am not singing it,” she said firmly.

“Please?” asked Friedrich.

Teleri sighed. “If I must, but there is to be no laughter. The wording may differ from Elketh’s version.”

“I would never laugh at you,” said Marina reassuringly and subtly poking Friedrich in the neck to make him nod. “You’re our guiding light right now and we will keep quiet.”

Teleri stepped forward and began singing; if you could call it that.

“There was a man, he was tall,

He wielded a war hammer and called,

The smithing god,

His attempts were flawed,

He came to an end,

The day he tried to mend,

A powerful artefact, somewhere inside,

A temple, deep inside,

It’s somewhere within the sand,

Maybe held in the hand…”

Friedrich and Marina looked at each other, their mouths agape. As their eyes met, the pair tried their hardest to fight their laughter, but it escaped through the gaps in their fingers as they tried to stifle their sudden giddiness. Teleri shot them a foul look, one that would strike fear even into the hearts of the gods, and the two fell silent, terrified of the repercussions should they let out as much as another snigger.

“Hmm,” said Suljah, folding his arms and contemplating. “I would ask you to repeat it, but that may just make your friends keel over and I would rather save you the embarrassment.”

“I will repeat it if I must,” said Teleri through gritted teeth, her golden face now a peculiar shade of orange.

“No, that won’t be necessary…I think…hmm…” Suljah furrowed his brow, racking his brain for something that he just couldn’t find. After a couple of minutes of tapping his fingers on his temples, he raised a finger. “Aha!” he cried, startling Marina whose staff let out a small spark.

“Careful!” Friedrich warned her.

“What is it, Suljah?” asked Teleri. “What does the song mean?”

“I believe that you are seeking the Lost Orb of Valskythe,” he said, looking and sounding very confident. “It is the only artefact I can think of that fits into the song. It is a strange orb, said to be haunting yet beautiful, that once belonged to King Kelmazir, but he could never figure out what it was for. It was magical, oh yes, it was magical, but nobody he spoke to could discern its nature. He asked every magic man on the island, every scholar, and every priest, yet none of them could tell him the purpose of this enigmatic orb.

“One day, forty years ago, a Northman named Pheston appeared with a magical hammer in his grasp. Quite the braggart, this man was, but he was most certainly powerful in many ways, including…smithing. The King heard of his tall tales and sent for him. Pheston, of course, had no idea what the orb did or how to fix it, yet so bold was he that he decided he would try. He made a rather large spectacle, praying at the top of his lungs to Baldir, the god of the forge, and struck the orb. Upon his hammer making contact with the glass, he vanished. Just like that, he vanished before everyone’s eyes.”

Friedrich hung onto every word, wondering if this smith was the demon haunting his nightmares. “What happened to him?”

“He was never seen again,” sighed Suljah despondently. “An unfortunate end for him. That would have been over thirty years ago now.”

“And what of the orb” asked Teleri, her voice low and quiet, dreading what she knew Friedrich was going to ask her to do next.

“That,” said Suljah, his voice trembling, “is something you should not seek. It is guarded by many magical machinations and fortifications that will mean certain death should you dare. It was sealed away, for King Kelmazir feared what would happen to him should he make a single error when handling the orb. Too powerful to be destroyed, too dangerous to simply sell to the higher bidder. Sealing it away was what he believed he had to do.”

“Where is it, Suljah?” asked Friedrich, looking the man square in the eyes and unthinkingly moving his hand towards the minotaur mask. “I know that you know, and I must also know.”

Suljah stared back for a moment before nodding his head. “If you must know, then I take no responsibility for the fate that befalls you. Are we agreed?”

“Yes,” said Friedrich, his hand moving down. Unbeknownst to him, Teleri had seen where his hand had moved. “Where is the Orb of Valskythe?”