The Foundling (The Hidden Realm) Read online

  The Foundling

  Book One

  of

  The Hidden Realm

  by

  A. Giannetti

  The Foundling

  Copyright © 2011 A. Giannetti.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the author.

  International Standard Book Number 9781456530013

  PROLOGUE

  The Foundling begins with a chance encounter between an old man named Balbus and a small boy named Elerian. They meet in the depths of a dangerous forest, and believing Elerian to be an orphan; Balbus decides to take him home, a decision that turns his quiet life upside down. He discovers that Elerian is no ordinary child, and that he is being hunted by a number of enemies, all of whom are determined to slay him for reasons of their own. To keep Elerian alive, Balbus is forced to contend with shape shifters, Goblins, and other magical creatures. Balbus is often aided in his struggles to keep Elerian alive by his good friend Tullius who possesses mage powers. And sometimes, Elerian, who possesses magical powers of his own, is forced to step in and save both Balbus and Tullius.

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Map

  Chapters

  Balbus

  A Spell Goes Awry

  A Chance Encounter

  Talking Wolves

  A Disturbing Discovery

  The Farm

  The Venetor

  Tullius

  Balbus Tells His Story

  The Disguise

  Watchers in the Dark

  Drusus

  Sarius is Deceived

  Strangers and Silver

  A Clever Trap

  The Rescuers

  Captured

  The Hunt for Drusus

  The Early Years

  The Leopard

  The Mutare

  A Difficult Decision

  A Timely Rescue

  The Chase

  The Woodcutters

  The Black Wolf

  An Alarming Development

  The Third Eye

  The Pool

  First Lesson

  An Unexpected Visit

  Bumps and Bruises

  A Difficult Time

  Hidden Realms

  A Rash of Mischief

  The Shape Changer

  One Spell Leads to Another

  An Old Enemy

  The Robbery

  Loose Ends

  BALBUS

  One hot summer afternoon on the first day of August in the waning years of the Fourth Age, a Hesperian named Balbus was working industriously in his vineyard. He was bent over beneath a scorching midsummer sun as he patiently pruned the excess shoots from his vines, snapping off the brittle green stems with his powerful, sun-browned fingers. Like most of his countrymen, he was short and powerfully built, with skin tanned to a rich brown by constant exposure to the sun. Whenever he raised his head, the sun glinted off the white hairs which peppered his short brown beard, for Balbus was sixty-one, just past middle age for a Hesperian, many of whom lived to see their hundredth year. From a distance, he might have been mistaken for a Dwarf had he been wearing one of the hoods they favored.

  Instead of a hood, Balbus wore a broad brimmed felt hat to protect his face and neck from the fierce August sun, but sweat still beaded his brow, and his brown tunic was stained with dark patches of perspiration because of his labors and the sweltering heat. Reaching the end of a long row of vines, he straightened up, stretching the aching muscles of his lower back before taking a moment to wipe away the moisture, which coursed freely down his face, with the loose sleeve covering his left arm. Stroking his beard thoughtfully for a moment with his right hand, he contemplated the acres of grapes left to thin with a marked lack of enthusiasm. He turned his warm brown eyes from the rows of grapes toward the forest of trees which covered the slopes below his farm. There would be shade beneath the thick green canopy formed by their branches and leaves, and cool, clear streams, where he could slake his thirst and cool his feet, flowed among their roots.

  Looking away from the forest, Balbus turned to a large black dog that lay on the ground nearby, sheltering from the sun in the thin shade cast by the broad three pointed leaves of the grape vines. His erect ears and long muzzle gave him a wolfish look, and his red tongue lolled between sharp white teeth as he panted softly in the heat. As if anticipating that a change of scene was imminent, he was keenly watching Balbus’s every move.

  “Carbo, I think it is time for cooler work,” said Balbus to the dog. Balbus was often alone, and he had gotten into the habit of speaking to Carbo as he would to another person. At Balbus’s words, Carbo’s hazel eyes took on an excited gleam. He was a clever animal and understood a great deal of what Balbus said to him. From past experience, he knew that they were about to leave the farm to go searching in the nearby forest for a bees’ nest and the golden honey it might contain. Carbo, of course, cared nothing for honey, but he found the forest to be an attractive place. It was always cool under the trees, even on the hottest days, and there were many inviting smells to investigate.

  “We are in agreement then,” said Balbus with a smile as Carbo leaped to his feet, his sleek black coat glistening in the rays of the bright August sun as he stretched his powerful muscles.

  “Come along then,” said Balbus, and he set off down the narrow grass covered path that ran between the rows of grape vines he had just finished pruning. Carbo followed eagerly at his heels.

  At the end of the path, Balbus turned right onto a wide cart track covered with short turf browned by the heat and lack of rain. The cart track climbed steadily as Balbus and Carbo followed it, for Balbus’s farm lay on the rounded crest of a long ridge, a spur of the Galerius which rose up like a great brown and gray wall miles to the south on Balbus’s left.

  When the track reached the summit of the ridge, it leveled off before coming to a small wooden gate set in a low fence. The fence was built of gray fieldstones of various sizes, taken from Balbus’s own fields. Balbus opened the gate, leaving the cart path which veered off to the right. He followed a gray flagstone walkway across a lawn of close cut turf that was still green, despite the heat. At the end of the walkway was a small farmhouse built of the same gray fieldstone as the fence, but with mortar added between the joints to give them strength. The farmhouse was roofed with brown clay tiles which overlapped each other to shed rain. The homey otherwise inviting look of the house was somewhat spoiled by a small window which pierced the wall to the left of the front door. Five iron bars as thick as a man’s thumb were set vertically in the window opening, and heavy wooden shutters closed off the window on the inside of the house. The door to the right of the window was equally formidable in appearance, being made of heavy oak planks which looked capable of resisting a small battering ram.

  The forbidding bars and the heavy wooden door were necessary precautions. The open hilltop where Balbus lived was safe enough during the day, but nights were an altogether different matter. There were wolves and leopards in the forests which covered the lower slopes of the hill, and in the wild lands to the north, there were bears and lions. During the lean winter months, when the sun went down and night threw its dark cloak over the land, these four footed hunters sometimes left the forest to prowl around the farmhouse on the hilltop. When Balbus heard their hungry cries outside his walls or heard them scratching on his door, the bars over the window and the thickness of his stout front door were a comfort to him.

  Attached to the right side of the house was a roofed stonewalled passageway that connected to a
small barn, also built of gray fieldstone set with mortar. In front of the passageway and to the right of the path leading to the front door was a large garden, green and lush from frequent watering. To the right of the garden, covering the span of ground in front of the barn was a small orchard of fig, pear, and apple trees, all heavily laden with fruit. Both the garden and the orchard were enclosed by the same fence which bordered Balbus’s front yard. The cart track Balbus had followed up the hill passed through the portion of the fence in front of the barn through a second larger gate, running through the middle of the orchard and ending before a large, heavy door in the side of the barn. Tucked away in a corner of the orchard to the right of the cart track was a small stone building which contained a well filled with clear, cold spring water. Four great chestnut trees grew around the house and barn, one at either end and two behind in the middle of a second lawn of close cut turf. Their wide, leafy crowns threw a welcome shade across the roof of Balbus’s farmhouse when the sun traveled its great arc across the sky.

  The lawn behind the house ended in front of a grass covered lane bordered on both sides by tall, regularly spaced ash trees whose long oval leaves cast a pleasant shade over the road. The lane ended in front of Balbus’s house, for he had no neighbors to the north. South of his farm, it ran along the crest of the hill on which he lived before taking a sharp bend to the southeast where it continued on over the foothills of the Galerius. Along its whole length, the road kept to the heights, dipping only briefly here and there to span some valley or hogback. Strung along the road on the hilltops were neat farmhouses, surrounded by fields, pastures, and small woodlots. To the left of the road, along the lower border of each farm, where the land sloped down to meet the forest below, grew a tall, wide, continuous hedge which afforded some protection from the forest and its wild inhabitants. To the right of the road rose the towering slopes of the Galerius. Their steep sides were covered with open meadows, browned and sere from the summer sun, but their tall gray peaks were bare of any cover.

  With Carbo impatiently crowding against his legs, Balbus opened his front door and entered his house. The dim interior was cool, for the thick stone walls kept out the heat of the sun. Thin rays of golden sunlight shone through gaps in the shutters which closed off the small window, giving Balbus enough light to see by. Quickly, he exchanged his sandals for a pair of sturdy leather boots. Like Carbo, he was now filled with a rising sense of excitement, and his dark eyes gleamed with anticipation.

  “After all these years of searching, perhaps today will be the day,” he thought to himself as he laced up his boots. A memory, still vivid despite the passage of time, suddenly played itself out in his mind. All alone, for this was long before Carbo had come along, a younger version of himself was plundering a bees’ nest located in a hollow log lying on the ground deep in the forest. As he pulled out golden honeycomb from the nest, he suddenly felt eyes on his back. Straightening up and whirling around, fearing some hungry beast was about to spring on him, he caught a brief glimpse of a thin goat like face with long, pointed ears and lustrous black eyes peering at him from around the trunk of an ancient oak tree. “A faun,” he thought to himself excitedly, and his fear instantly vanished. From the time he was a small child, Balbus had heard stories of older races that had lived in the land of Hesperia before the first men arrived there, and he had often fantasized about meeting one of the elder people in the forest. He opened his mouth to call out a greeting, but the strange creature abruptly vanished. Dropping the dripping golden combs that he held in his hands, he had rushed to the tree, but there was no sign of the strange being he had glimpsed a moment ago. “Come back, I am a friend,” he shouted repeatedly, but there was no response to his cries.

  Balbus had never dared to tell anyone about what he had seen, for with the exception of himself and some very young children; no one actually believed that the legends about vanished races were true. “If I ever speak of this, everyone will think I imagined it,” he had thought ruefully to himself at the time. “I will never hear the end of it. Behind my back, people will call me a fool.”

  Although he never spoke of it, Balbus had never forgotten the incident, and if anything, his desire to find and meet a member of the elder races had grown even stronger. Fortunately, the quest for honey gave him a convenient excuse to spend time in the forest without people suspecting the real object of his search.

  After lacing up his boots, Balbus fastened a leather sheath containing a long, sharp knife to the wide leather belt that circled his waist. He then secured a wide, spiked leather collar around Carbo’s neck. Each spike was as long and thick as Balbus’s little finger and sharpened to a fine point. The collar, along with Carbo’s great size, made him a formidable guardian. The beasts of prey, which lived in the forest, gave him a wide berth when he was abroad with Balbus in their haunts.

  Once Carbo’s collar was fastened to his satisfaction, Balbus shrugged his shoulders into the handles of a large wicker basket. The basket rode high on his shoulders and contained a large brown earthenware jar for carrying honeycomb. A long coil of rope hung from the back of the basket. Sometimes, Balbus had to climb into a tree to reach the nests that he found.

  “Let’s be on our way then,” Balbus said cheerfully to Carbo, who was now waiting by the door, his paws dancing on the polished stone floor in his eagerness to be off. After opening the door for Carbo, Balbus reached with his left hand for a sturdy wooden staff that hung from a peg to the left of his front door. Shod with a steel cap at one end and pierced with a hole for a leather strap at the other end, the polished brown staff appeared to be an ordinary walking stick, but it had a hidden virtue. Concealed in its hard wood was a finding spell that made it invaluable to Balbus. He never went into the forests that lay below his farm without it.

  After locking the door behind him, Balbus transferred the staff to his right hand and set off down the cart track. As he descended, Balbus was able to look out over a vast green wood that stretched north and east from the hill on which he lived, reaching with only an occasional break all the way to the distant horizon. On his right, rising like a great wall in the south, were the sharp peaks of the Galerius.

  The cart path Balbus followed cut through his grape fields and ended before a tall, heavy gate of unpainted wood. It was set in a narrow opening which pierced a thick hedge covered with small, glossy, oval leaves of a dark green hue. The hedge was twice the height of a man and was a part of the barrier which protected all the hilltop farms, stretching unbroken, except for an occasional gate, all the way from Balbus’s farm to Sidonia, the nearest town. Its tough, interlaced branches formed only a partial barrier against the forest and its inhabitants, however. A determined animal could still force its way through the base of the hedge if it persevered long enough.

  After passing through the gate, Balbus walked across a narrow swath of thick, ankle high grass that separated the hedge from the forest. A deep stillness lay over the trees which rose up like a green wall before him. Not a leaf fluttered in the oppressive heat of the afternoon sun.

  Without hesitation, Balbus eagerly pushed his way through a screen of low hanging, leaf covered branches, followed closely by Carbo. At once, he felt as if he had entered another world. The rays of the fierce midsummer sun were filtered by the thick green canopy of leaves overhead, and only a dim, greenish light that was soothing to the eyes penetrated to the forest floor. The leaves also blocked the heat of the sun, and Balbus felt a welcome coolness flow over him. Almost of their own accord, for they had traveled it many times before, his feet found a faint path that wound between the tall trees that reared up all around him. Despite being surrounded by trees, Balbus did not feel closed in. There was no underbrush because of the lack of sunlight, and the thick trunks of the trees were far enough apart that he could see for a good distance on all sides. Only a thick layer of brown leaves, broken in places by the twisting, knobby roots of the trees, covered the ground.

  The path he was following soon led
Balbus to a small, sun drenched meadow. He paused for a moment by its margin. The tall grass covering the clearing was browned by the summer sun, and the wild flowers of spring were long gone, but the small, round white flowers of clover plants were still scattered all across the meadow. Droning among the flowers, eagerly harvesting their sweet nectar, were hundreds of yellow and black bees. It was toward these industrious insects that Balbus directed his attention.

  A SPELL GOES AWRY

  Raising his staff, Balbus pointed it at the nearest member of the winged horde plundering the meadow flowers. As the bee busily gathered nectar from a clover blossom, Balbus pictured a hollow place filled with honeycomb in his mind. At once, his walking stick began pulling his right hand, gently but insistently, across the meadow as the finding spell within the wood sought to guide him toward the nest that belonged to the bee he had signaled out. For the rest of the afternoon, Balbus and Carbo traveled at a lazy pace in a northeasterly direction across the east face of the hill on which Balbus lived. Once, off in the distance behind him, Balbus heard the measured thud of a woodcutter’s ax, but other than that sound, there was nothing to indicate any human presence in the forest. A green silence, broken occasionally by liquid birdsong, prevailed under the trees which rose like brown and black pillars all around him. It was hard to imagine any danger in this peaceful setting, but Balbus kept his eyes and ears open as he walked, and he especially watched Carbo whose senses were so much keener than his own. As long as it was daylight, Balbus felt quite safe, especially with Carbo at his side, but it was always best to be cautious. The thought of becoming lost, one of the greatest fears of those who walk in the wild, never troubled him, for he had his staff to bring him safely home, no matter how far into the forest he traveled.