The Revenge of the Elves (31 page)

Chapter Forty-three

They walked the short distance to the Town Hall in silence, having left the others behind. Kerrigan opened the doors and stood to the side as Fallean entered. He followed him inside and shut them, pushing the bolt securely back in place. Kerrigan’s hand trembled. “I’ll take you down,” he told him.

“Thank you,” Fallean said, watching him closely. “Are you sure there’s nothing else you want to tell me?” Why is he so nervous. What was Megan hiding? Now’s my chance to ask.

“Either they’ll accept you or they won’t,” he replied, ignoring his question. “If they do not, you won’t be able to descend.”

“Kerrigan?’ Fallean asked him one more time as he followed him to the rear of the long room.

“It’s nothing. Megan was right, I’m just tired. With all that’s been going on these days, the wolves, the changes…” He looked over his shoulder and smiled uncertainly. “Don’t worry about me. I haven’t been myself, I’ll get over it,” he admitted, walking on. “You need a clear mind. I couldn’t think of a better person to do this,” he looked away, refusing to make eye contact.

He’s keeping something from me.
“I’m ready,” Fallean replied.

They reached the carved door and Kerrigan grabbed the metal ring in the middle of it. Bracing his feet, he pulled with both hands, his muscles straining under the weight until it opened with a groan.

“Ah,” Kerrigan sighed. “I hear it.” His features relaxed.

Music. Beautiful
, Fallean thought. It flooded his senses. He looked into the darkness beyond and he forgot about Kerrigan’s worries. The sounds multiplied a thousandfold. Soft chimes echoed off the walls, resonating and making the room seem enormous. Louder. It grows louder as I focus on it. The music touched his skin everywhere like thousands of tiny hands caressing him, penetrating the surface and reaching inside.

“Our presence has been acknowledged,” Kerrigan understood the language. “They welcome us.”

I know. I understand.
Fallean couldn’t speak.
Can’t see.
His vision was unclear.
Yes. Yes I can. Different. What? How?
The space was huge, endless. He saw across time, across space.

“I can’t go any further. I must leave you.” Kerrigan’s words sounded slow, distant. Unreal.

Kerrigan bent down and pushed something in the stone of the floor. Fallean heard rocks scraping against one another, sliding. A crack of light escaped from the floor, shooting into the room.

Hurts. Can’t look.
He hid his eyes.
Water. Hear water. Everywhere.
The sound thundered from the ground.
Feel it. All over me. Amazing!

“These steps will lead you to a platform upon which sits a chair,” Kerrigan’s disembodied voice spoke and Fallean heard the words through different ears. “Walk to it, sit upon it and wait for the Lalas to decide. You will know if they accept you and then you will know what to do. Farewell, my friend.”

He’s gone.
Fallean knew it right away.
Have to go down.

He stepped onto the first step. His legs were buffeted with music. He felt the notes touch his skin. All his senses reacted, as if he was encircled by rushing water. He took another step into the earth. The stone gave way beneath his feet… soft, pliant.
Stone that’s not stone. Water that’s not water. Sound that’s not sound.

Step after step, deeper and deeper below the surface he went. Straight or curved, crooked or unbent, he couldn’t tell. The steps led him down. A hundred thousand voices sang out at once.

Vertigo hit him and he stumbled, reaching for something to steady himself with. The walls were gone. There was no floor beneath him. All sense of space was gone. He fell.

Kerrigan warned him, but nothing could have prepared him for this. A chair appeared right in front of him. He reached out for it. Sweet air filled his nostrils and his head grew lighter.

It sat in a sea of churning water, frothing and bubbling all around it.
Not solid.
His fingers passed through its surface.
Something here.
The touch balanced him and he turned and sat upon it. It caressed his legs and lapped over his fingers. His thighs melted into it and it covered him. He leaned back and it cushioned him.
Water! It’s water, not stone.
The chair moved as he moved, conformed to his body’s contours, washed his ears, bathed his eyes, filled his nose.
Warm. Beautiful.
He leaned his head back against it, and it entered his mouth, embraced him inside and out. The Lalas accepted him.

Walls of water cascaded down around him. Mist drifted cloudlike in the air and with each breath his lungs filled with the fragrance of life. His body absorbed it, became one with it.

The water’s alive.
It glowed and the song of the Lalas reverberated in his head.

Everything moved, everything shifted constantly, never the same… always the same. He chose one spot upon the water-wall and he stared at it. As if the act of concentration itself parted the waters and allowed him to see, the surface beneath came clear. He gasped, ecstatic. And he saw it. The ends of the trunks of a million trees formed the massive walls. Water rushed over them all.
Beautiful. So beautiful

The more he saw, the more the Chamber revealed.
Roots. That’s what they are. Not trunks. The ends of the roots.
The water bathed them and as it surged over their tips, the friction made them resound.
The song of the Lalas.
Finally, he understood.

He reached out his hand. Two rings hovered before his eyes and his fingers passed right through them. A boy’s face came into view. He had never seen it before but he knew who he was.
Davmiran.
Behind it, on top of it, inside of it another.
Tomas.
His green eyes sparkled through the rushing water.

Four figures loomed in the distance, pairs walking from opposite ends on a stretch of sand. A rock rose from the water and fire shot from the sky. His ears rang with the song of the Lalas and his skin prickled at the touch of the water. A great Lalas imploded upon itself and disappeared into a chasm in the earth. Pain seared him. Emotion washed over him with the waves. The water burned and the music became discordant and harsh. A Chosen lay motionless against a stone, his sword across his chest. Tears rolled off his cheeks and mingled with the waves.

Three elves marched through the woods, side by side.
Familiar. I know them…
they vanished before he could remember. The song became a funeral dirge and the waters grew dark and murky.

A new image rose up, obscuring those that came before. The youngling, in its glory, stretched its limbs out toward him.
Have to touch it.
He thrust out his arm. The vision grew sharper, more defined. His fingers couldn’t reach. The tree grew before him, spreading in all directions.
Ahhhh
, he sighed.

Another seed sprouted. He felt it burst through the surface. Birth. Life. Silver leaves unfurled, opening to the sun.

The Lalas yearned for the youngling. He felt it in the music.
They’re calling. Hear them. Voices calling.
It drew close to Tallon, close to the Chamber of the Roots, reaching out for sustenance.

Something dirty pushed against the far reaches of his vision. A black speck in a white sky.
Stop
, his mind screamed but the song of the trees was too loud.
Stop!
he yelled again, but the waters absorbed his voice and drowned his words. The blackness grew, spreading through the mists.
No! Don’t you see it? You have to see. Look!!

The roots exploded with light and fire, open and vulnerable. The wound spread and the disease infected everything it touched. The youngling thrust through the earth and the song of the Lalas beckoned, unsuspecting.
Please
, he shouted, but the music was too loud. They couldn’t hear him. The darkness was alive. He felt its presence as he felt the water. It infected everything. Blackened it. Poisoned it. Robbed it of life.

Can’t be. It can’t be.
But it was. He knew it. Suddenly he knew it.
You ‘re aware! You see it too!
The trees saw the Darkening but they did nothing!
Stop it! Warn it!
he screamed.
Don’t let this happen. Don’t!

The youngling’s roots approached the Chamber, open, unsuspecting of what lurked there waiting for it. He couldn’t let this happen.
Why?
he yelled.
Why? Stop it! Call to it! Please. What are you doing?
The trees refused to listen. He opened his mouth, laid his head back and screamed like a madman into the void.

Noooooooooooo!

Chapter Forty-four

They sat on the dock and listened to the water lap against the shore. The city was silent behind them. It should have been peaceful. But it wasn’t.

“What else do you know about the well?” she asked. “Do the histories speak of it?” She gazed out into the sea.

“I don’t remember it being mentioned,” he replied. His face was strained and he shifted his position. “If that’s really it out there, then it can’t be a well anyone drew water from. It’s too hard to get to.”

“I wonder how far down it goes,” she said. Her body shuddered. Deep and dark. Cold. “That’s it though. It has to be.” It was so easy to find. Too easy?

“I thought we’d have to search and search,” he echoed her thoughts.

“I could never have spotted the bridge,” she admitted.

“If we’d gotten here when the tide was high, we wouldn’t have seen it. You can see it now too, can’t you?”

“I think so,” she said, squinting. His breath was hot against her ear and it felt good.

“It’ll become clearer soon. I hope it’s wide enough for us to walk on,” he said, referring to the bridge. The water churned and splashed all around it. “It won’t be easy and the sun’s going to set soon. I don’t want to take you out there after nightfall.” He tightened his grip around her.

“We may not have another chance.” Black. As black as death. “We need to decide what we’re going to do.” As they sat and waited for the well to emerge from the water, her doubts returned. She hugged her knees with her arms.

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“You told me you had a plan, remember?” She pressed her back into his chest. His body was warm against hers.

“I thought I did,” he stared out at the water.

Caroline understood. “I think we should get to the well if indeed it’s there.” She stared with him. “Maybe we’ll know then.”

He felt so safe with her, and everything else…

“That’s the well,” Dalloway was sure. “Soon the tide will be out and we’ll see more of it.”

“So much depends upon what we decide,” Caroline spoke her thoughts.

“We were told what to do with the map. Maybe we should just do that.” His voice was unsteady, unsure.

“Even that’s become a choice we have to make. Tamara told us what to do with it and yet she chose to give it to us. She didn’t do it herself.”

“She entrusted it to us, Caroline,” he reminded her. “Does that give us the right to decide its fate ourselves?”

“So we should throw it down the well as we were instructed,” Caroline concluded. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back into his shoulder. She was so comfortable against him. For a moment she hoped the tide would never go out.

“Yes, we should,” Dalloway agreed, but his heart was not in it. He looked over her head at the frames of the ships half-sunk in the shallow sea.

The dead city loomed behind them, and the water lapped against the crumbling remnants of the wharf as the surge ebbed.

Black sand blew over the white stones of the path. With each gust, the horse shied. “Easy boy,” Beolan spoke in his ear, stroking his neck under his mane. The further they walked into the city, the harder it became to calm the animal. A narrow roadway veered off of the main one and Beolan headed for it. It was less exposed, less open. A series of steps led from it down toward the sea.

The surface was slippery and the sky was darkening. It would soon be hard to see. Beolan steadied the horse. “Easy now,” he said again. It stumbled down the first stone slab. Its hoof missed a step and clattered on the rock. The sound echoed like a clap of thunder. Beolan sunk lower in the saddle. “Easy, easy,” he whispered. The key was cold against his skin, even through the cloth of his shirt. Maringar held on tight to the back of the saddle. The winds cleared the path in front of them, beckoning. Beolan hunched his shoulders, shielded his eyes from the blowing sand and pushed on. The black water stretched out wide beyond the tops of the buildings. Beolan squinted. It should have been blue.

“Why are we going to the water?” Maringar asked.

“Instinct,” Beolan replied without thinking. “No, it’s more than that. When we were back at the gates something in the distance caught my eye. I saw a light flicker, more than the sun on the water. I saw it again a little while ago.”

“A flicker?” Maringar questioned.

“An omen,” Beolan’s voice was steady, sure. “Twice it caught my eye.”

“Fair enough,” Maringar replied.

They clattered by houses with stone balustrades, elaborately carved, worn by sand and time but still beautiful. Empty buildings, doors ajar, littered with broken furniture. Wagons tied to stone posts. Shops with their signs inviting patrons. Inviting ghosts. Everything looked like melted wax, smooth and amorphous… apparitional. Beolan pressed past them all, his eyes focused ahead.

“They left everything behind. Why? What happened here?” Maringar asked, wincing more with each word.

“I wonder about the same things,” Beolan confessed. “Everyone does.” His voice was tense.

“But why? Why would they all leave here?” Maringar asked. “Maybe they weren’t threatened at all. Everyone assumes that right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “What if the opposite were true?”

“What do you mean?” Beolan’s body stiffened.

“What if something or someone convinced them to leave? That would explain why there aren’t any signs of a struggle anywhere, and why they left everything behind.”

“What could do that? Who?” He raised his hand. “Don’t answer that. Better if we don’t guess.” He pulled the fabric of his tunic up around his neck. The sand was creeping down it.

“When we get to the shore, maybe we’ll learn more,” Maringar shrugged.

The horse started. “Shhh, shhh, shhh. Easy,” Beolan spoke softly. “Don’t look,” he said to the animal, but he meant the words as much for himself.

Far to the left, the crest of an archway rose above everything else. It stood out starkly, even though most of it was buried. The path widened on the way to the docks, designed for transport. They passed beyond the last of the tall structures and the water stretched across the horizon.

“There are ships everywhere. Look!” Beolan pointed ahead. Skeletons. Carcasses. Ruins.

“Can you see the well?” Maringar asked. To his eyes, the shoreline was no more than a distant blur.

“No.” He looked from left to right. “Let’s get closer.”

The path grew wider and the buildings grew sparser as they neared the shoreline. It split left and right, and Beolan chose the straighter of the two that looked like it led to the beach, more a footpath than one for commerce. They walked around the first bend and it descended precipitously through a thin gulch carved into the stone of the mountain, blocking their view of the shore. The stones gave way to the sand as they emerged from the rock. A plain wooden platform, still intact, straddled the glittering sand.

“There’s a jetty running into the bay.” Beolan’s heart skipped. The sun hovered in the western sky. “Something’s at the end of it.”

A flash of light caught their eyes, a vivid spark on the unsettled water.

“That’s it!” Beolan said. He pulled back on the reins, hesitating. “It came from the end of the jetty!” The water was too black, too dense, not like water at all. “The tide’s going out. There’s something there.” The sun streaked through it.
Like through a keyhole
, Beolan thought, but he kept it to himself.

“If it is, it wasn’t very hard to find,” Maringar grumbled, skeptical.

“No, not hard at all.”
Too easy?
He looked over his shoulder at the city behind him. Nothing stirred. Dead. Everything was dead. His eyes jumped to the jetty.

The water around it churned.

Beolan led the horse out from behind the rocks, into the open. A shadow ran across the beach like a charging animal.
The brighter the light the darker the shadow
, the thought came to him suddenly.