The Lost Runes Saga [Epic Fantasy]

TWENTY-THREE

Focusing inward muted the sounds of Alvarn gathering supplies on the first floor. The heartwell appeared before Vidar's inner eye, and he spent a moment observing it. Full of power borrowed from the dragon Vatrfjall, it shone with swirling colors. The dragon's essence struggled against the heartwell's barrier when it first poured into him and threatened to destroy it and Vidar with it, but once it settled, it was the most natural thing in the world. His heart bathed in that power now, rather than being strangled by the husk all humans now carried with them. He wondered if that was the reason he no longer felt the need to sleep as much, why pangs of hunger did not wrack his midsection despite Vidar not remembering when last he had a proper meal. If that power allowed for these new developments within him, he did not think that was all of it. Yes, the more powerful effect in all runes he rejuvenated using the dragon's essence was a marked improvement, but he wanted more.

He breathed in and swam through the void that was his inner self, moving closer to the heartwell and the potential surging within. Vidar reached out with a hand and touched the barrier. In this place, standing before the heartwell was like standing in front of the sun itself. It burned, but without pain. In the center, his heart beat with slow, powerful thuds.

Standing in front of the heartwell, Vidar saw details he had not spotted before. Tendrils originating from within the heartwell reached his heart. Narrow like the ends of a tree branch, the strands wrapped themselves around and around, but that was not all. He saw not where they ended but knew, as if the heart itself told him, that they entered the physical heart. That was how the power of the dragon's essence, stored in the heartwell, reached out to the rest of his body. Like regular, human essence, it followed along the paths his blood made throughout his body. It made sense, in a way, and felt like no great revelation. What Vidar wondered, though, was if it was possible to have those strands come alive without a rune to rejuvenate. Pulling from that well of power required only focus and will. More of the same should allow him to draw upon the heartwell for other uses of the dragon's essence, like his body must do on instinct when it increased the rate of healing in his wounds and injuries.

Vidar reached out with his hand and with his mind, the strands coming ever closer. He touched one, and it came alive with power. Dragon's essence raced along a single, frail line, like a surging wave on an otherwise tranquil river. Round and round the heart, it moved, until, finally, the dragon's essence entered the heart in Vidar's mind, and through it, to his physical heart.

His eyes shot open, and he gasped for air. Energy surged through him. For the briefest moment, it felt like he could jump past the clouds and soar above them, like he could punch a hole in the wall or tear it apart. Vidar's body screamed at him to move, to run, and to fight. Then his concentration wavered, and the feeling passed.

"What was that?" he asked the snoring Erik, who did not reply. The sense of being full of energy remained, but to a lesser degree, and Vidar found himself out of breath, not like he'd been running for too long, but like his body was prepared for it. Nothing of the tiredness remained.

"I did it," he said, standing. Once he got down the stairs to Alvarn, he said it again. "I did it."

Alvarn looked up from a rucksack he was trying to close, one that was far too full. "Did what?"

"I'm not sure. Power."

"Power?"

His thoughts were a mess, and he still just wanted to get out, get away from the house and its constricting walls. "The heartwell. I took some of the dragon's essence out."

Alvarn nodded. "To rejuvenate a rune."

"No," Vidar said. "I rejuvenated nothing. Just took it."

"Just took it," Alvarn said, a thoughtful look on his face. "And how are you feeling?"

"I feel great!" The words came out with a little too much force, so he spoke them again, holding himself back. "I feel fantastic. Like I'm ready for anything."

"That is probably fine, then. I would counsel caution. Using more essence than your body can handle will not end well for you. Have you ever tried withdrawing essence from a rejuvenated rune? Without using the styrka rune, I mean."

Vidar recalled one such moment. It'd ended with him emptying his stomach onto the ground. "I might've tried it once."

"And never again?" Alvarn asked, taking the following silence as confirmation. "This whole thing with dragon's essence is so far out of the norm that I don't know what to think, but using too much of it will have dire consequences. You're not," he cleared his throat, "prudent at thinking things through. Be careful, Vidar."

"I will be," Vidar said, and in that moment, he meant it, too.

"I wish there was time to explore all this. The runes too, but with the threat looming over us, it'll have to wait," Alvarn said.

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"Yeah."

"A request, though, if I may?"

Vidar looked up at him. "What?"

"Dragon's essence. I need more of it. The little you gave me did not regenerate into more, like you say yours is doing, and I'm almost out."

"Oh?" Vidar asked. "What did you use it for?"

"Rejuvenating stakra runes. Thrust has several interesting applications I find worth exploring."

"Like with the flying ballista?"

Alvarn pressed down on the items in the pack with a grunt. "I wouldn't call what that huge thing did flying, but no. Not flying. The difficulty in that is far too steep, at least for the foreseeable future."

"Too bad, but fine."

"Fine?"

"I'll give you more if we can just leave after. I need fresh air," Vidar said.

Alvarn just nodded and waited, so Vidar placed a hand on his friend's chest and transferred quite a bit more dragon's essence than last time, enough to fill his heartwell. That still left more than half still in Vidar's.

"Thank you," Alvarn said. "Ready?"

"Readier than ever!"

* * *

"This is boring," Vidar complained, sliding down against the wall opposite the windows overlooking the water cleaning station.

Alvarn looked up from his notebook, halting his pen. "This is not boring. Don't you see? Something entered through the metal bars of the water intake, perhaps a branch or part of a broken-down ship. It damaged, but didn't break the spinning piece with the styrka runes, but then lodged itself by the filtering intake, blocking the small holes in the walls."

"Boooooooring! Let's just fix it!"

"The question is how to best go about it," Alvarn said, not even looking up from the book this time.

"Stakra runes," Vidar said, crossing his arms over his chest as he slid down even more. Most of him was on the floor now, but he didn't care. The energy surge from the dragon's essence had long since left him, which meant his previous lethargy and tiredness returned with a vengeance. All Alvarn had done since they arrived, this time through a more accessible route to the west of the church of the fallen angel, was write in his damn book while sometimes peering out through the windows. No water arrived in the room with the sowilo rune, leaving this part of the waterworks almost dry. Somehow, that also meant the sewers not working. The place stank.

"What if we break it more?" Alvarn asked. "The thrust from stakra runes is difficult to control."

"Look," Vidar said, "if you have a better suggestion, I'm all ears, but we've been down here for a good while now. If you haven't heard the news, we're going to be attacked by dragons at any point now. They might be burning down the city above us as we speak. Maybe we can try something, anything. I don't even know why you need me down here with you, if not for my impeccable use of runes."

Alvarn chortled, then sighed. "The best option I can come up with is using the rope I packed and try to catch whatever is down there and pull up whatever is blocking the filtration bits. As to why I need your help, well, I figure it's easier to attempt any solutions we come up with as a pair rather than me being down here alone."

He shifted around the chamber, and his shoulders hunched. "Also, I'm not fond of the ambience down here."

Vidar got to his feet. "You mean the smell?"

"No, not the smell."

"You're not afraid of the dark, are you?"

"I wouldn't say afraid," Alvarn said, adjusting his glasses before they slipped off the tip of his nose. "I just don't like it."

"Of course, of course. You're not fond of the dark," Vidar said. "But we're never going to hit anything in that churn of water with a bit of rope."

"A stakra rune might break open the wall," Alvarn countered, "spilling seawater that hasn't been filtered into the next chamber. People would get sick, maybe."

"Or maybe they wouldn't, and maybe the wall won't break. Throw your rope a few times if you want, but then I'm trying my way."

"Destruction," Alvarn scoffed.

Vidar raised a finger into the air. "Controlled destruction, if you please." He gestured for Alvarn to approach the window. "Go on then."

"Fine," Alvarn said. "I will make an attempt with the rope."

He withdrew a worn-looking, somewhat frayed rope and a book of all things. Alvarn opened the book and read as he tied the rope to look like a noose.

"What's the book for?" Vidar asked, leaning out to look at the water below. The glass in this window was long gone, shattered before they even arrived.

"It's a book of knots," Alvarn said.

"You need a book for that?"

"I need a book to make sure it's right. Anything worth doing is worth doing right."

Alvarn approached the window with his nose, and Vidar bowed out of the way. Surprising no one, Alvarn's attempts did not deliver the wished-for results. He almost dropped the rope once, and after a few tries of the noose just being pushed to the wall as soon as it entered the water, he capitulated. "Fine," Alvarn said. "Try it your way."

Vidar straightened, pulled his shoulders back, and assumed the air of a noble about to scold a commoner who dared step in his way. "Watch and learn, you cretin." He leaned out the window, then looked back. "It's right opposite the stakra runes on the pillars, right?"

"Yes," Alvarn said, holding up a wooden disc with an algiz rune imprinted around it in front of him, like a shield.

"Really?" Vidar asked.

"Things tend to go boom when you're around. I've noticed," Alvarn said. "And we can't all walk around like tattooed dennerish sailors."

Vidar shook his head, scoffed, and turned back to the chamber. He leveled his palm at the target and triggered the stakra rune that he'd filled to the brim with dragon's essence. Thrusting force shot out with a loud thump, crashing into the water as Vidar was thrown back with an equal amount of force. The angle of his palm meant he flew not just back but up, hitting the ceiling first. A barrier formed between himself and the hard stone surface of the chamber, the algiz rune on his back triggering. It made him bounce to the wall, where the same rune saved him again, before he fell forward, straight down, onto the floor. The short fall meant he didn't need the speed required for the algiz rune tattooed onto his chest to trigger. Vidar's head, chest, and legs paid gravity's price.