Pool of Twilight - James M. Ward [85]
Evaine marveled at the ruin, wondering who had built a hall for their god in this place so long ago. It must have been a very holy site, she thought. Even now there was a peculiar serenity about the weathered columns that reached toward the azure dome of the sky.
The path continues up to the temple, Gamaliel spoke in his mistress's mind.
Evaine nodded, and the two began to wend their way among the jagged boulders up the narrow path.
"Do you hear thunder?" she asked her familiar, frowning.
Winter is not the time for thunderstorms.
Evaine gazed at the sky. There wasn't a cloud in sight. She was about to accredit the noise she had heard to her imagination when suddenly she heard it again. It was louder this time, a low rumbling that grew with each passing second.
Evaine, look out!
The sorceress jerked her head up and gasped. A huge boulder bounced down the ravine toward the two travelers, pulverizing other rocks in its path. Gamaliel leaped toward her, knocking her aside. Entwined, the two rolled beneath a low granite overhang.
A second later, the boulder struck the overhang and bounced past, missing Evaine and Gamaliel by a matter of inches.
"You didn't have to be quite so rough," Evaine said testily, wriggling out of the crevice and brushing herself off. "A simple 'Duck!' would have been sufficient."
You're welcome, Evaine, Gamaliel replied wryly.
This made her laugh despite their close call. She scratched him affectionately behind the ears, then started back up the path that followed the narrow gully.
Moments later, another deep rumbling echoed down the ravine.
They were better prepared for the boulder this time, scrambling out of its path before it hurtled by. But they had barely resumed their trek up the ravine when the booming noise began anew.
"This is getting ridiculous," Evaine said in growing annoyance as the third boulder tumbled past the mouth of the shallow cave into which they had quickly scrambled.
Once that boulder was out of sight, the sorceress found an ancient-looking cedar tree, gnarled and twisted by years of strong winds. She pulled herself up to its highest branches, which afforded a better view of the cliff top. What she saw made her stare in amazement.
"I think I've found the source of those boulders," she called down to Gamaliel.
Even as she pointed, a huge man-shaped form lumbered mechanically from between the temple's colonnades. The creature carried a massive boulder in its arms, moving toward a crumbling wall that ended abruptly at the cliff's edge. When the gigantic creature reached the end of the wall, it dropped the rock, and the fourth boulder started its noisy journey down the mountainside. Apparently unperturbed, the creature lumbered back through the temple to pick up another boulder and begin the sequence anew.
After watching this go on for a few minutes, Evaine scrambled down the tree.
What is that creature, Evaine? Gamaliel's tail twitched in agitation.
"I think it's a stone golem."
A golem?
Evaine nodded. "A creature made of some inert substance that has been magically animated-wood, iron, clay, or, in this case, stone." She winced as another boulder bounced past them down the ravine. "Which means that it's big, immeasurably strong, and almost completely impervious to injury."
I don't suppose you know why it keeps on tossing boulders down the ravine?
Evaine rubbed her narrow chin in thought. "I don't really know, unless…" Her eyes flashed.
"A golem is a mindless creatures, Gam," she explained excitedly. "Its creator can give it only the simplest instructions, and the golem will perform those instructions literally. It could be that, long ago, this golem's creator ordered