Darkin: The Prophecy of the Key (The Darkin Saga Book 2) by Joseph Turkot Read Free Book Online

Wallstrong stood as the last unoccupied city of Hemlin.
    Flaer led the trio down a brightly lit corridor, dumping them at its end into a richly ornamented chamber that arced wide to allow many rows of grain-wood chairs. Each chair pointed toward the front of the room at a polished slab of granite, doubling as both a podium and a plinth for one single column that climbed all the way to the vaulted ceiling; the single column seemed to hold the entire room up by itself. Erguile gazed in wonderment as they entered, viewing thirty-yard high paintings of warriors clad in gold and silver armor that canvassed the walls. The pillar itself was painted in rustic lines that spanned its entire height into a distance where he could no longer make out its details; it appeared, he thought, to have been painted like the trunk of an impossibly tall tree. For a moment, Erguile thought he saw a bird poke its head through a hole in the pillar. He marveled at the lifelike artistry, and decided he would have to inquire later as to who could paint a structure so big. Flaer wound his way down one of the many aisles toward a row of empty seats near the front, and Slowin followed behind with Erguile, who was distracted still by the paintings. After a command from Flaer, Erguile sped up, and together they took their seats. Slowin could not fit into the row of chairs; instead he stood in the middle of the aisle, constantly moving as people passed by him, usually gawking.
    “Go on, nothing to see here,” Slowin said, allowing a troop of weldumuns to pass.
    “Look at that!” called someone from up the ramp. Slowin turned to see what he suspected—onlookers glaring in bewilderment.
    “Alright, you’ve seen me. Now be seated, we’re starting,” Slowin ordered. Many rows behind them, Erguile spotted what he thought were golems; there were two of them, both staring down at Slowin.
    “Look at that, metal friend. Some cousins of yours, perhaps?” Erguile asked.
    “A bit small for cousins, wouldn’t you say Erguile?” Flaer said. The golems were indeed smaller than Slowin, and Erguile figured that Slowin would dwarf them if they stood side by side. While the golems looked similar in form to Slowin—lumbering arms, rigid joints, giant hands and heads—their skin color was quite different: the golems were russet and grey, with green roots twining round their rock muscles as if blood veins. It very much appeared to Erguile that the staring golems were built of plant and rock, unlike the uniform metallic body Slowin possessed.
    “They can’t get enough of you,” Erguile called over. “Hey Flaer, did you see something move on the pillar? It’s like the painting is real.”
    “It is no painting, friend. That is the oldest tree in all of Hemlin. Some say it possesses the power of a lost age, untapped and dormant. The weldumuns would have you believe it is the bastion of eternal strength. The druids would argue it is a source of Gaigas’s power made available for men and beasts.”
     
    Just then, a clang reverberated through the chamber. The crowd of seated onlookers quieted. Taking a small set of stairs onto the plinth was a tall blonde-haired druid. The man appeared to Erguile the same as any other man.
    “What’s the difference between their race and ours?” whispered Erguile to Flaer.
    “Our natural life span is several hundred years shorter than theirs,” Flaer replied. “That is one of their many peculiarities.”
    “How can that be? But you’re as old as a druid. Krem told me you’ve been alive for as long as he has; he said maybe longer.”
    “I am an exception. Now pay attention.”
     
    “Friends of Hemlin, and protectors of the free world of Darkin, we gather here in urgency. We come together to relay the condition of our world to our brethren, and the condition of our fair Hemlin. Once this has been done, we shall set a war in motion, so that we may ensure no more of our beloved are killed, and no more of our grand cities