The Eternal Flame Read online

  At first, Elli felt a rush of confusion. And fear. Is he talking to us? Then she realized what the elf was really doing. He’s saying good-bye to all these books.

  Grikkolo sighed, as only someone who is leaving all the best friends of his life can sigh. And then he started to walk, his steps slow and shuffling, across the library’s cracked tiles.

  “The doorway is near,” he cautioned. “Then remember the steps down to the street. Just do your best to trust in your senses, and this will not be quite so difficult.”

  “My senses?” sputtered Elli, as she walked haltingly behind him. “I have no senses now.”

  “Oh, but you do, young woman. Trust in them, and they shall expand.”

  She snorted in disbelief, shaking her mass of curls.

  Through the doorway they moved, which Elli guessed only because she noticed a different texture underfoot. Then down the library’s stone steps they crept, Elli feeling each edge with her toes before stepping down. In time, Grikkolo started to lead them through the maze of streets in the ruined City of Light. The turns came so quickly that Elli soon lost track of them, holding tightly to her end of Grikkolo’s belt. But for the occasional crunch of bones as they walked, she heard no sounds from the devastation that she knew surrounded them.

  Eventually, she perceived a kind of hardening in the darkness ahead. The city wall! Through a gap they strode—though not before Elli tripped on a chunk of stone from a toppled column. She barely caught herself before sprawling, and Nuic was lucky to stay on her arm. But she let go of the belt.

  A wave of panic washed over her. Darkness pressed closer on all sides.

  No sooner had she gasped, however, than Grikkolo returned the strip of cloth to her hand. He said nothing, and merely patted her wrist gently. Yet she could tell, somehow, through a sense that had nothing to do with sight or sound, that he felt nearly as relieved as she did.

  They continued walking, now on the familiar stubbly moss that smelled so much like mint. Up a long, gradual hill they climbed, pausing now and then for the old elf to catch his breath. In these moments, Elli stooped down and grabbed a handful of moss, enough for herself and Nuic to chew.

  As the slope started to level off, she heard the unmistakable splatter of a stream. Like an invisible thread woven through the fabric of darkness, it flowed down the side of the hill. Grikkolo led them to a flat rock that they could only feel beneath them. Here they knelt beside the stream and drank deeply, hearing the constant swish and bubble of water.

  Onward they walked. The terrain rose and fell in repeated waves, while the ground hardened into packed soil. Soon the mosses disappeared entirely, replaced by some sort of fuzzy-leafed plants that brushed against the travelers’ legs. Elli tried to imagine what those plants might look like, attempting to picture many different shapes of leaves. Finally, she gave up, deciding to think of them just as ferns—mainly because she had no better idea.

  To her own surprise, she was beginning to stride with greater confidence. Although she still held on to Grikkolo’s belt, she didn’t squeeze it so tightly as before. The darkness seemed less oppressive somehow. And she found herself hearing more sounds—the distant flutter of a bird’s wings, the peeps of a tiny frog, the subtle gnawing of caterpillars on the leaves by her ankles.

  As they continued to walk, her breathing grew more calm and regular. Her senses, just as Grikkolo had predicted, slowly expanded. Now she felt less like someone blinded, and more like someone whose abilities to hear and smell stretched out in all directions. Indeed, her sense of smell had become an army of airy hands that reached everywhere, grabbing a hint of huckleberry or a whiff of smoky cinnamon, a scent of discarded snakeskin or an aroma of something almost as tangy as rose hips.

  Walking this way, she realized, was itself a form of meditation. Just as she had done back at the Drumadian compound, when she would hide among the pillars of the Great Temple and open herself to the compound’s seven concentric rings and the seven sacred Elements they represented, she opened herself to the mysteries of this land.

  Listen to Creation’s morning, began that wonderful blessing from Rhia. Waking all around you.

  Was it possible, Elli wondered, for even a land of darkness to know a kind of morning? An awakening that had nothing at all to do with the return of light? After all, this realm was just as much part of Creation as any other. While its mystery and beauty could be quite subtle, and lived alongside terrible danger, was that really any different from the lands bathed in light?

  She remembered, in a flash, a phrase that Grikkolo had used: the lovely dark. Those words had, at first, puzzled her greatly. Yet now, while they still sounded strange—as if spoken in another language—they also sounded true. She caught at least a hint of their meaning, much as she had caught that faraway scent of rose hips.

  Feeling the gentle, rhythmic tug of the cloth that connected her to the elder, she could easily imagine his bent frame trudging along. This was a bold thing for Grikkolo to have done—terribly bold, after living all those years in hiding. She listened to his shuffling steps, and felt deeply grateful to him. For leading them through this realm of darkness, of course. But just as much, for introducing her to another language of the senses.

  All at once, Grikkolo veered to the side. He sped up, practically dragging Elli behind him. She was just about to ask him what he was doing, when her newly sensitive ears heard the distant sound of voices. Harsh, grating voices. And the clump, clump, clump of boots on the march.

  Gobsken!

  From the sound, there seemed to be a whole band of them, as many as ten warriors. Now she could also hear the creaking of armor plates and the occasional slap of swords against thighs. Then, just at the edge of her vision, she saw a faint touch of light—the glow of torches behind a ridge.

  Grikkolo, panting hard, led them to an area littered with small, jagged stones. “Duck your head,” he whispered, as his pace slowed sharply.

  Just as Elli ducked, she felt a sudden change in the air around her. It was a touch warmer; what little breeze there had been now vanished. As she crept forward, her hand on the elf s bent back, she felt the stones underfoot change to damp dirt. She knew at once that they had entered some sort of cavern.

  “Here we sit,” wheezed Grikkolo. “And wait.”

  After a moment he added gravely, “They are coming this way, I believe. We could never outrun them, and hiding places are quite scarce. So our only hope is that they will pass by here without discovering us.”

  Elli crawled a bit deeper into the cavern. She found a slab of rock where she could rest her back, while Nuic rolled aside and propped himself against her leg. As she strained to hear any more sounds of the gobsken, she clasped her darkened crystal.

  And wondered at how swiftly tranquility could turn into terror.

  16 • Visions

  Time passes within the cavern. Minutes, hours, it was hard to tell.

  To Elli, this darkened den within the rocks was not much different than a dungeon. For she knew that somewhere out there, just beyond the range of hearing, marched a band of gobsken warriors. They could be drawing nearer by the second.

  She shuddered at the thought. Right now, this cavern seemed like the darkest place in the darkest realm.

  “You know, Nuic,” she whispered, tapping the damp dirt floor with her fingers. “As close as we are now to finding Kulwych’s mine, it feels farther away than ever.”

  “Hmmmpff. That’s a cheery thought. I’m so glad you told me.”

  More time passed. As hard as they listened, they heard nothing besides the anxious breathing of a young woman, a pinnacle sprite, and an old elf.

  At last, Nuic raised his voice in a gruff whisper. “Tell me something, master librarian. If you wanted to destroy this corrupted crystal we told you about, before it can do much to help Rhita Gawr, how would you go about it?”

  Grikkolo drew an uncertain breath. “I fear I really do not know. Never, in all the texts I have read, have I seen anything
of that sort. To serve Rhita Gawr, that crystal must be the absolute opposite of élano—so it can destroy just as irresistibly as élano can create. What could possibly eliminate such a power?”

  “That’s what I asked you,” grumbled the sprite.

  Again, time passed in silence. Finally, Grikkolo spoke again. “I believe they must have passed us by. Even as much as gobsken dawdle when they can and often stop to argue among themselves, they should be far away by now.”

  “Really?” Elli felt as if a heavy gobsken boot, which had been stepping on her chest, had finally lifted. “We can move on?”

  “We can.”

  “Just a minute,” said Nuic. “Now that we are safe again, for the moment at least, there is something I want to do. With a crystal.”

  “You want my amulet?” Elli asked. “Why?”

  “Not that crystal, you boneheaded girl. This crystal.”

  With that, the jewel on his chest flashed with a burst of green light. Grikkolo, surprised by the sudden brilliance, winced and covered his large eyes. But seconds later, he was watching the jewel at the edge of his vision. For he had recognized it from the descriptions he’d seen in books.

  “The Galator,” said the old elf, his voice full of wonder.

  “That’s right,” answered Nuic, bending to look into the glowing green crystal. “It’s about time I looked in on somebody.”

  Nuic peered at the jewel, concentrating hard, his skin color shifting to deepest green. All at once more colors appeared in the crystal, swirling like a whirlpool in the Rainbow Seas. The colors started to coalesce, forming an image in the jewel’s center. It was an elderly woman whose silver curls fell to the shawl on her shoulders. Tiny light flyers flew around her, glowing as bright as her gray-blue eyes.

  Rhia, thought Elli. She glanced at Nuic, who was gazing at the image of this woman whose maryth he had been so long ago. She could see, in his deep purple eyes, an unmistakable emotion: love. The sight made her smile, for as much as Nuic always tried to hide his feelings under a shield of gruffness, the feelings were certainly there.

  Rhia, Elli noticed, looked much frailer than when they had parted in the forest of El Urien. It’s the crystal, she remembered. When Rhia gave me the crystal of élano, she also gave away the power that kept her younger than her years.

  She bit her lip. I only hope that, in the end, I’ll have deserved such a precious gift. And such a precious trust.

  An idea struck her, one that brightened her mood a little. When all this was over, if she somehow survived, she would give the crystal back to Rhia! Yes, that would be the perfect way to thank her, and return the trust.

  The image shifted, drawing back for a wider view. Rhia was kneeling beside another elderly woman, gently stroking the woman’s brow. High Priestess Coerria.

  Elli’s vision clouded as she studied Coerria’s prone form. Light glistened on her long white hair, and on the elegant gown of spider’s silk whose beauty took Elli’s breath away every time she saw it. But Coerria’s eyes, as blue as the bluest alpine tarn, couldn’t be seen, for they were closed.

  Is she alive? Elli stared hard at the image, but she could not tell.

  Abruptly, the image faded. The Galator flashed green again, then went dark. The eternal night of Shadowroot returned, filling their cavern in the rocks just as completely as it filled the realm outside.

  Elli felt grim, and she was sure that Nuic shared her mood. But when Grikkolo raised his voice in the dark cavern, she could tell that he was feeling something different: bewilderment.

  “I do not understand,” said the old elf. “I saw no one there. Yet you, apparently, did. I thought the Galator—”

  “Can show you people you love,” finished Nuic. “That love allows you to see them, but never to speak to them, since no love is that powerful.”

  “Ah, I begin to understand. This person you viewed would be someone I do not know, let alone love. But it must be someone you love, correct?”

  “Hmmmpff. When I don’t want to kill her, yes.”

  Grikkolo sputtered in surprise, momentarily bewildered again. Then his tone changed to curiosity, and he asked, “Do you think, perhaps, I could use the Galator myself? There is someone I long to see, someone who lives in another realm. And although I have never actually met her, I have dearly loved her since the first time I read about her, years and years ago.”

  “Well,” answered Nuic’s crusty voice, “if an old sprite can manage, why not an old elf? Just concentrate hard on this person, whoever she is, until her image appears.”

  Grikkolo peered at the Galator, and it flashed. Colors swirled, with strong shades of blue. But they did not coalesce into an image—at least not one that Elli could see. A moment later, the crystal dimmed. The cavern returned to darkness.

  “Well?” asked Elli eagerly. “Did you see her?”

  “No,” Grikkolo said sadly. “I saw nothing beyond some splashes of blue.”

  “Who was it,” pressed Nuic, “you wanted to see?”

  “The Sapphire Unicorn—ancient, wise, and beautiful.”

  Hearing the name, Elli gasped. But Grikkolo didn’t seem to notice, and continued, “She has been called, by many a scribe, the most elusive beauty in all the lands. I was hoping,” he said glumly, “to see her, even for an instant, through the Galator.”

  Though her throat was dry, Elli swallowed. She couldn’t bear to tell the old elf the truth—that the Sapphire Unicorn, along with the child she was expecting, had been brutally killed by Rhita Gawr’s treachery.

  “Er, well, perhaps,” she fumbled, “you could try again sometime.”

  “Perhaps,” he replied. “Yet I suspect that I will not succeed. Just as courage is not my nature, neither are the mysterious workings of magic.” Again he sighed. “Or love.”

  “Elliryanna,” said Nuic quietly, “is there anyone you would like to see before we go?”

  “Yes,” she answered, not sure whether she felt more annoyed or amused that the sprite knew her so well. He could read her clearly, even in the dark.

  She concentrated on Tamwyn. Barely an instant later, the crystal flashed, painting the rock around them with rippling green light. There he was! She bent closer to the Galator, watching intently.

  Tamwyn’s long black hair streamed behind him. Although she could see only his face, he seemed to be riding something, moving fast. No, not riding—flying. And he looked happy, as happy as she’d ever seen him. A blur of wings obscured him for a second, and then the scene abruptly changed.

  Now she was viewing him from afar, at such great distance that he was only a tiny speck amidst bright circles of flame. The stars! He had actually made it all the way to the stars! The place he had always longed to see, the place his father had tried to reach, the place where his quest would be won or lost.

  Suddenly she noticed something approaching him from behind—something huge and menacing. Gaining on him rapidly. Whatever it was had wide, dark wings—even darker than the spaces between the stars. Could it be a dragon? Then she sensed, with a surge of panic, that it was something still worse. Her heart froze. That dragon could be Rhita Gawr!

  The image jerked sharply back to Tamwyn’s face. Elli focused her gaze on him, trying to warn him somehow. But he seemed blissfully unaware of the danger. Only seconds remained, she was sure, before Rhita Gawr attacked.

  Warn him! I must warn him somehow. She marshaled all her mind’s energy, trying to send him her thoughts. Tears welled in her eyes. Her whole body quaked. She couldn’t think any more clearly, or care any more deeply.

  But he didn’t notice. He looked relaxed and serene—aware, it seemed, only of the beauty of the stars.

  “Tamwyn!” she cried aloud, her voice breaking. “Look out!”

  For half an instant, his face changed. He looked almost as if he’d heard something—

  The image suddenly disappeared, flooded with swirling colors. The Galator, though, continued to vibrate with light—a residue, perhaps, of what had just ha
ppened. It glowed dimly, just enough to illuminate the companions’ own faces in the dark cavern.

  Elli felt wretched. Did he hear her cry? Did she actually warn him in time? She couldn’t tell. Most likely, she wouldn’t ever know.

  Worse, she suspected that she was only indulging in wishful thinking. How could he possibly have heard her? After all, everyone knew that the Galator had never done such a thing before. Rhia herself had declared that speaking through the jewel was impossible. So had Nuic.

  She stopped peering solely into the glowing jewel and instead looked at the sprite who wore it. Nuic’s skin had turned black with thin veins of red and silver running down both his arms, a pattern she’d never seen on him before. But what surprised her most of all was the expression on his face. He, too, seemed surprised—and, though she couldn’t be sure, almost hopeful.

  Just then someone spoke. Someone outside the cavern! The voice, practically a snarl, cut through the darkness. “Over here, men. ‘At’s where I heard the shout.”

  Gobsken. Even as all the remaining light faded from the Galator, a new source of light appeared beyond the cavern’s entrance. The warriors’ torches were drawing swiftly nearer.

  Before Elli could move, Grikkolo’s hand reached out and grabbed the front of her robe. “Hear me,” he whispered urgently. “Do not follow me. Do you understand? Do not follow.”

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  The old elf didn’t answer. He simply turned away and started crawling out of the cavern. Seconds later came the sound of his feet shuffling over the small stones outside. And then came another sound: Grikkolo’s voice.

  “No gobsken will ever catch me,” he cried boastfully.

  Several harsh voices responded. Boots thudded over the ground. The torchlight grew stronger.

  “No,” moaned Elli. “He’s made himself a decoy! He’ll get killed.”

  In the dim, flickering light, she glimpsed Nuic’s expression. And she knew that he felt exactly as she did. If there was any chance to save their friend—