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Book 1: Part 1, Achuld and Tolliaft

There was a temple in Allivard now. Not a good, proper temple, as the teachers new to the area agreed it should be, and not particularly pleasing to the eye, looming at the edge of the close knit town. The building itself was not much broader than the house of the town steward, but much taller. Constructed from brick and sandstone, the temple stuck out from the largely lumber and stone-stack structures of Allivard and stuck out from the earth with a tall spire protruding from the roof, brushing the sky with rough-hewn stone edges. According to the Aroan teachers, it was tilted and spotted, made of ugly stone by unpracticed hands. Tolli agreed the building was ugly, though mostly for reasons of personal taste. He disliked the men who worked there and wished they would leave.

Trotting out of town down the road, Tolli came into full view of the temple. Hefting his satchel over his shoulder, he knelt and rose to loose a stone at this blemish on his town’s skyline. It soared through the air carrying with it all the distaste he felt in his heart for the temple. Too far a distance to hit the wall or roof, the projectile bounced and rolled along the ground to the base of the building, rebounding with a short tap. The towering structure appeared unfazed. Tolli spat.

“Spitting is a nasty gesture, young Tolliaft,” came a voice from back up the road. Tolli turned to give a rude gesture to Huld, who came sauntering down the road toward him, affecting the prudish tone used by the teachers in every lecture. “You will surely fling what little brain you have onto the temple floor if you keep it up!”

“Hang the temple! That would be the only brain seen inside the walls!” Tolli playfully kicked some dirt in Huld’s direction. “You make a fair Extet Pullast, even if your voice squawks like a hen.” Huld was a full year older than Tolli, and his changing voice was already a cornerstone of their humor. Huld stood a few inches taller than Tolli, and had gained some muscle whereas Tolli’s arms still hung like knotted drapes from his shoulders. A shock of deep chestnut toppled about his head as Huld bounced to a stop by the younger boy, a small sheepskin satchel slung over his shoulder.

Chilled autumn air slipped down the hills as the sun carved its way through the sky to rest along the horizon. Most of Allivard rested in the shadow of the hills, rolling up to meet a plateau beyond. The treeline ended abruptly in pasture, having been arduously whittled to its current shape to accommodate the sheep herds of the village. The boys, though filled with youthful vigor enough to warm a kettle, drew their cloaks more closely around them.

“Let’s go quickly, before we lose the path to the dark,” motioned Tolli, and the pair scampered off up the sloping path toward the treeline. From the town and the pastures below, the forest looked like a fluffy, speckled blanket laid gently over the curves of the hills. As the two approached them, however, the giant forms of the treeline bent out over their heads, reaching out to scoop them up, closing them in before they had breached the forest edge. The sounds of the breeze rustling the leaves overhead accompanied Tolli and Huld as they made their way up a small game path through the brush and between the thick okvuld trunks, but the other sounds from outside the forest died away immediately. Huld whistled mockeries of the birds in the trees. Tolli tapped the bases of trees as he passed with a twig salvaged from the undergrowth. The loss of daylight was more pronounced in the woods, and the boys hurried along the breaks in the foliage before the path was lost entirely to the night.