Grethron's chest still ached when he thought back to the last argument he and Malthrom had been through. Malthrom's face had been dark red with rage as he shook the sheaves of parchment in Grethron's face.
"It is quite plain in the texts, Grethron. The source of this power is described as being below the city of Shantriss."
"I completely agree, brother mine, but that particular city was abandoned centuries ago as you well know," Grethron said. "How are we to even to begin to locate something buried below a dead city?"
Malthrom looked at him with incredulity.
"What have you become?" He spat. "Where is your sense of adventure? What has happened to your need to discover secrets, unearth the mysteries of the past? Will you not even attempt to make the journey with me?"
Malthrom looked his brother in the eye.
"You will not, I see!" He realised, incandescent with rage. "You are no brother of mine, spineless worm! Do not come lapping at my feet like a dog when I return from Shantriss with an unlimited power at my disposal."
Grethron sighed deeply at the memory, Malthrom had left immediately after his final words. Grethron had not seen or heard from his brother after that. It had been yearssince they had spent any significant time apart and Grethron felt almost lost without his guidance and advice.
Something had altered in Grethron after their fight, he had discovered that a deeply buried part of himself did feel the need to uncover the mystery they had spent three years researching.
It had taken a few months and some large sums of gold but Grethron had managed to secure the services of a pair of men to assist in his journey and any digging that might be required. During the journey he had kept the reasons for his visit vague, telling the duo he had hired he was looking for random buried treasures. Neither of them seemed to care.
It took them a fortnight of travel before they saw the city in the distance, beginning as a haze on the horizon and eventually resolving into the outlines of buildings and towers.
"Is that where we be headed, Mr. Grethron?" Bolon had asked, peering into the distance.
"It is," the other man replied. "It is that."
"Should we push on into the evening, sir?"
Grethron had shaken his head.
"I do not believe so, Bolon. Make camp here and we will enter in the morning."
A few hours later, with the last rays of the sun warming their backs, the three men sat looking into the dancing flames of the camp fire. Grethron felt a kind of nervous anticipation setting into him, urging him towards the abandoned city of Shantriss. Bolon looked over at him.
"What do you think we be finding in there?" The younger man pointed at the city with his chin.
Grethron had scratched at his face, thinking before he answered.
"I doubt there will be any living thing remaining within the city. Maybe a few wild animals, yet I doubt that as there would be little prey for anything large.
"Any form of danger remaining inside those walls will come from the instability of the buildings themselves," he glanced at the other man. "Crumbling masonry and the like. As long as you are careful and pay attention to my guidance, we should not encounter any difficulties."
It had begun as a low growling sound, growing into a roaring bellow, splitting the night like thunder and echoing from the walls for ages
Grethron and his two escorts stared towards Shantriss, where the noise had obviously come from.
"By Dawa, what be that?" Bolon had quailed at the sound, wrapping his arms around himself.
Despite not being the most intelligent man on the planet, even Hernom looked as if he was ready to bolt, casting nervous glances at the smaller Bolon.
"I have no idea, Bolon," Grethron replied. "I have absolutely no idea."
Laying back down, Grethron had tried to close his eyes, fully aware of the fear and anxiety the other two gave off
Although there was no repeat of the soul wrenching bellow from the place, Grethron's feelings of attraction to the nearby city started becoming so powerful he felt as if something was actually pulling him, physically, across the grass. At some point, he fell asleep.
A high-pitched chirp brought him awake with a start. Alone. Bolon and Hernom were nowhere to be found. Grethron swore as he rolled from his thin blanket and stared into the embers of the fire. In spite of this setback, he was faced with little choice but to carry on towards the abandoned city and the source of the gentle tugging force which pulled him onwards.
Irate and alone, Grethron had packed up what few possessions the pair had left him, shouldered his meagre pack and set off for the city.
Years of neglect, decay and harsh weather had brought down sections of the outer wall. Vast stretches of hewn sandstone blocks had belched out to spill in heaps of light yellow.
Here and there grass and shrubs had begun to colonise these piles, breaking the stones down further with their roots.
Grethron had paced through the gateway where huge gates had once stood, bright orange rust stains marring the yellow road the only reminder they had ever stood guard.
Most of the buildings here had been levelled by the passage of time, with the stump of a wall jutting up like remaining teeth in a jaw, the only evidence these had been buildings rather than piles of rubble.
Deeper into Shantriss Grethron could see taller buildings, or the remains of them at least. An eerie silence wrapped itself around the lone figure pacing through the bones of the city and Grethron found himself straining to hear something, anything, other than the echoes of his own foot falls.
Not a breath of wind stirred his hair or the leaves in the occasional tree that had managed to grow in a patch of earth here and there. Nothing moved, not a bird, not a mouse, nothing apart from the single figure wending his way through the devastated ruins of the city.
Although he had been unaware of it, Grethron had followed the pull of the unseen force towards whatever goal it might want to bring him to.
He had passed the burned husks of buildings set alight, a large columned edifice with a crumbled dome which had been a temple to the God Dawa and a mass of utilitarian buildings which looked like they might have been barracks, possibly for the city Watch.
Grethron had felt the emptiness of the city, the abandonment of it and somehow the loneliness it gave off, as if not being filled with people and activity had broken the place in a more fundamental way than the passage of time ever had.
Toting his few possessions, Grethron had made his way past the broken remains of homes, shops and municipal buildings, still aware he was being guided by the unseen force.
He did not concern himself with whatever inhuman beast had made the coughing bellow that had frightened his two companions away as, more and more, he was distracted by thoughts and feelings alien to him.
The building he eventually realised he had been led to was a rather nondescript place rather than one of the more palatial remains he had passed.
Solidly built from the local sandstone, as most of the city had been, this particular building stood slightly apart from its neighbours. Just slightly farther than was necessary to allow access past the place, just slightly more than enough to make it stand out like mould in a basket of fresh fruit.
As with the rest of the city, every scrap of wood, leather, cloth or any other type of organic material had long since rotted to dust or stain. Grethron could see where doors had stood, shutters had hung and where furniture had spent its life from the discolouration on the floors, the orange stains where hinges and nails had long since oxidised.
This section of Shantriss must also have suffered from regular flooding as silt had built up in the corners of many of the surrounding buildings, Grethron found as he had had a brief look around.
With nothing to burn, the lone man had been forced to huddle in a dry corner of the building, wrapped in as many clothes and blankets as he owned and stared out of the rectangular door without even seeing the darkness of night draw down and stars appear in the velvet blue of evening.
It was the deep, snuffling grunt that brought him back to his senses and fear chilled his entire form as the massive bulk of some creature passed by just outside the doorway.