The Abbor-Alz, he began, was a long and dangerous line of hills. This rugged highland chain began far to the north at the shore of the Nyr Dyv and was generally known as the Cairn Hills in that -region. A narrow neck of the tors was so rough and high as to actually constitute mountains, and at this point the Cairn Hills become known as the Abbor-Alz, which is the Middle Common translation of “Dreaded Howes,” as the area was called in Elder Suloise.
The eastern and southern portions of these tall mounds and steep valleys were not actually so bad, said the savant, if one discounted hostile hill tribes, monsters dwelling in these wilds, and similar stuff. From the Sea of Gearnat, up the Nesser River past Gnatmarsh to Celadon Forest, the Abbor-Alz penned in the Bright Desert, just as the highland plateaus and tors serve to do the same as the hills turned west to butt into Woolly Bay just below Hardby. Iquander informed them that the fairest portion of this range was within the Celadon Forest proper, and recommended a journey there at some future date if they enjoyed such pastime.
Anyway, the savant went on, it seemed that his old friend Greenleaf-their friend also, of course-had come across a piece of interesting lore while within the part of the Abbor-Alz that reached into the forest. This information had to do with the discovery of an ancient site of some sort, with great monoliths of standing slabs all ringed and set in special ways. A place of power and danger certainly-and one absolutely irresistible to a druid, naturally. Iquander had put together some of the pieces of this puzzle of information for Greenleaf. Now the rash fellow was off into the countryside, bound and determined to find the exact location of the ruin and investigate it.
When the savant sought to launch into a discourse on similar sites, Gord managed to interrupt. Did the good savant know exactly when their friend, Curley, had set out? What route he had taken? Was the druid relying on his and Chert’s assistance? Well, yes, Iquander told them, that was exactly the point. Greenleaf had just departed yesterday, leaving a map for his friends, and urging that they join him on the venture with all haste!
At last they had what they were after. As soon as Iquander came back from wherever he had stuck the map, they grabbed it and a brief note accompanying it, bid the garrulous sage good-bye, and hurried out. He was telling them something about demons, or daemons, or demodands-Gord was never sure which-as they hastened away. Much later on, when he thought about it, Gord wished that he and Chert had been a trifle less precipitant in departing….
The map sketched the territory between Nellix and Mauve Castle, a town at the edge of the Cairn Hills, while the note said simply that they should meet Curley at an inn called the Manticore’s Tail near the southern gate of that latter town.
“This chasing after Curley is getting out of hand,” Gord said sourly. “Why in hell can’t he stay put long enough for us to catch up and find out from him what’s going on? We’ll probably get to the meeting place in Mauve Castle only to find he has flown off to somewhere else. We could end up traversing most of the Flanaess before we find him, and I for one have no desire to follow him across half a continent.”
“Yah, old Curley is getting to be a pain in the ass with all this mysterious stuff,” Chert agreed. “That’s the problem with a druid who likes to play fighter-he won’t stay home and mind his grove. He’s just like Gellor, always going off on some kind of hush-hush business.”
“You mean Greenleaf is more than a druid?”
“From what I understand, he’s a pretty tough ranger. I hear that he and old one-eye were neophytes together up in the Gamboge Forest, and that’s where he took to being a scout and spy. I suppose Gellor’s influence got to him.”
Now Gord was thoroughly puzzled. “What was Gellor doing with druids? You lost me somewhere.”
“Oh, that’s simple,” Chert assured him. “Gellor is a bard. Haven’t you ever heard him sing? He’s got a pretty fair voice and plays the harp real good!”
“A bard has something to do with druidical studies?”
“That’s what Curley told me,” said the barbarian.
Gord let it go at that, figuring that he would learn more from Curley Greenleaf… if they ever met him again. He and his big companion rode fast in an attempt to catch up with the druid, hoping that they could make up his one-day head start before he got to his destination and headed off on another tangent. If he decided to employ his power to travel magically, neither Gord nor Chert thought they would ever locate Curley before he went off to find the megalithic ruin he was seeking.
The rotund druid was indeed traveling by conventional means. With Mauve Castle about one day’s ride ahead, they did catch up with him at a roadside tavern, and the three reunited adventurers spent the night there. After they greeted each other and settled down at a table in the tavern, Gord and Chert were finally able to learn just what Greenleaf was questing after.
“I have heard in old epics,” he told them, “that there was a place of great power in the Abbor-Alz, and the Archdruid of Celadon allowed me to read an ancient tablet he possesses. That gave me a clue as to where the place was and what it looked like, so I went to my old friend Iquander. He was able to dig up most everything else I needed to know.”
“That’s fine, Curley,” Gord said sarcastically, “but how about telling us now?”
“Great idea, Gord!” chimed in the barbarian. “Come on, lay it out for us, Greenleaf, or we’ll thump it out of you.”
“Not here,” the druid said seriously. “Too many ears to pick up something as important as what I have to tell you. Let’s find a wench to serve us supper, and afterward we can retire to our chambers and talk. I’ll explain it all then.”
Both young men grumbled, but there was nothing to do but go along with Curley’s plan. He wouldn’t say anything in the common room of the tavern and wouldn’t go elsewhere until he’d eaten. Chert said he was famished-and he did consume vast quantities of chow at every opportunity-and Gord was also feeling pangs of hunger, so they nodded acceptance of Curley’s terms and ordered a meal. Soon the three were busily demolishing a roast capon, some egg and mutton-kidney pie, and various and sundry comestibles delivered in stages by the serving woman. Finally, after the last bones were stripped bare of meat, the pie dish clean, and nothing but a few crumbs of bread to be seen on the table, Greenleaf sat back patting his round belly and Chert belched contentedly as he swigged down another pot of stout. Gord, having finished much sooner than his two companions, had been waiting impatiently for this event.
“If you two gundiguts have finally stopped stuffing yourselves,” he said, “I think it high time we went upstairs so that Chert and I can learn the real meat of our chase halfway across the Flanaess!”
Still beaming with happiness at his repletion, the druid nodded and arose, leading the way to the rooms they had taken above.
“There is a great ring of stones,” Curley began, as they sat in the small parlor adjoining the three bedrooms. “It is near here, within the mountains which split Cairn Hills from Abbor-Alz. There is a hidden valley there, a circular place which is unnatural. Steep walls ring a level plateau, and this ground, in turn, is hemmed by monoliths. Seven circles of different sorts of stones, there are. The size of the stones grows larger as the rings progress inward, from liths no bigger than a milestone to huge ones taller than a giant. These seven rings of stone encircle a cairn at the center. It is that which we must enter and explore!”
“What is inside?” asked Gord. “Gold? Gems?” Chert, not much interested in tales of worthless rocks, perked up at these last two words.
“I think not,” Greenleaf answered slowly, and Chert looked bored again. “But there is possibly something of far greater worth within the barrow… a relic.”