by David Rice
Grumm and Olaf both groaned. “Can we finish what we came here to do first?”
The vision in the ice faded once again. “Yes,” she snipped. “Keep looking.”
After what seemed like an eternity of walking, Kirsten turned to face her companions, a look of weary frustration blossoming upon her face, and she leaned against a narrow column of crystal. “My feet are killing me,” she said.
“And that’s with the shield healin’ yeh, too,” Grumm tried to joke.
Kirsten chanced a tiny grin and her eyes softened. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I thought coming here would make a difference. I thought I could heal my Papa even when everyone else was saying only he could do that. I think I’ve been wrong and I think I’ve drawn
all of you into danger.”
“Ah, we’d a gone with yeh anyway. It’s what good folks do,” Grumm replied.
Kirsten lowered her eyes. “I guess I’ve even broken some eternal laws along the way—” “Well, not everyone can say that,” Olaf added.
Kirsten gave the gnome the look.
Olaf cleared his throat and pressed on, trying his best to muster the illusion of courage. “Look where we are! Being here? It’s incredible.”
“Like a tale from The Mysteries,” Grumm added.
Kirsten’s eyes filled with concern. “How do you do that? Sound so positive after seeing what you saw in the tunnel?”
Olaf looked away and shrugged. “Need to find something good in this,” he ventured. “Gotta make up for all that loss somehow.”
Kirsten felt a surge of heat from her pendant and brushed away a tear. “I’m glad you came along, Olaf.” Her head filled with memories of Helba and Raisha. Then she looked once more upon her Papa. “I’ve got losses to fix, too.”
Muren moaned suddenly and everyone’s eyes shot towards him. He was labouring to lift a feeble hand.
Then something moved in the crystal behind Kirsten and two arms melted free to grasp for her neck.
Grumm drew his axe. Olaf crouched.
Kirsten dropped the shield in her struggle to keep the arms from choking her. One of the hands began to scrabble desperately for the pendant and its blazing heat. Kirsten twisted away from the frigid white hands. One clamped around her hair, pulling Kirsten to a painful stop.
“Get off!” Kirsten yelled, and she swung the Fahde in a blazing arc that cut a portion of her own hair and severed the thumb of the monster’s hand. Kirsten fell back and scrambled to her feet, seizing the shield once more. The twitching white digit skipped across the ice. “What are you?” Kirsten’s demand echoed through the cavern. “What do you want?”
The tingling sounds of ice grew. Cracks appeared in the column. A face began to emerge, creeping towards the surface of the melting ice.
Kirsten grasped the burning pendant and thrust it towards the hands. “Do you want this?” she taunted. “Well, you can’t have it. It’s mine. My mother gave it to me.”
The ice slid away from a face that was both tormented and beautiful. Its hollow eyes were filled with the blue light of the shield’s gem. “I remember,” came the unearthly reply. “I made that—for you.”
Kirsten stepped back and the point of her sword flashed towards the trapped creature’s face. “You lie. My mother made this. Not some haunted wreck in a pathetic glass graveyard.”
“Oooooo,” Olaf whispered.
The face of the creature softened. She looked longingly upon Kirsten and then her expression twisted with pain when her gaze fell upon Muren. Her one unwounded hand pointed.
“Why have you brought him?”
Kirsten’s heart was hammering and her head spinning. This was her mother? “Why do you think?” she answered sharply. “His whole live has been wretched because of you. And he’s wrecked others along the way because of that.”
Behind Kirsten, she heard a voice that she had thought was lost to her in time.
“’Dris,” it said. “Forgive me.”
Kirsten turned, her eyes wide, as her Papa shook with the efforts of standing. His eyes blazed with delirium. Kirsten lowered her sword and gestured abruptly. “Hurry up,” she ordered. “Help him stand.”
“Are you su—” Grumm started to ask, cut himself short, and hoisted Muren to his wobbling feet. Olaf stepped out of the sling and supported Muren’s other side. Tentatively, they stepped forward just enough for the two quivering hands to touch.
“Let The One wake,” Muren pleaded. “You must.”
“Impossible,” Alandris hissed. “The weave is held in place by our sacrfices. If he wakes, the weave will collapse and all will be lost.”
“No,” Muren sighed. “The One wants to wake. Needs to—”
Fear briefly flashed across Alandris’s pale face. “Impossible,” she replied once more. “But if I could use the power of those gems?”
Muren stiffened with shock and he turned to place himself between Alandris and their daughter. “No!” he cried out wide-eyed. “Kirsten. This is a trap.” Then he teetered forward his hands grasping wildly for balance.
Alandris’s fingers knotted together with Muren’s and she slowly drew him in. “Of course, I understand, Mur,” her deep voice warbled. “You just need to feel the strength we control here to understand as well.”
Ice began to form at Muren’s feet and he gasped in pain. “Dris, please! The One must wake up. Or the drakes will end everything—” His voice collapsed.
Kirsten leapt forward and tried to tug Muren from her mother’s grasp. “No! You can’t!” she yelled. “Don’t! You can’t!” She slammed the pommel of the Fahde against the ice and the cavern quivered.
The panic in Muren’s eyes quieted and his mouth stretched into a wane smile. He lifted his free hand to point at Kirsten. “I understand now,” he whispered. “Look at our daughter.” His weakening voice vibrated with pride.
“I have. You’ve done well,” Alandris smiled through gleaming blue eyes. “Now come to me, Muren.” The ice of the column began to climb over them both and the cavern quivered with new light. “We can sleep.”
“No!” Kirsten shrieked and sobbed. “No!”
“He needs my help, my child, to put his heart at peace. And I need his help,” her mother purred, “and yours, to keep the One dreaming peacefully.”
Her handreached for the Fahde but Kirsten pulled away.
“You can’t have it,” she screamed. “Let go of Papa!”
The white fire of the weave began to flow through the column. Alandris’s mouth widened to softly cry with pain and pleasure. Muren’s eyes darted open,bristling with new light, and his free hand reached to brush Kirsten’s cheek.
“I’m going to make everything better,” he whispered.
Tears sprang down Kirsten’s cheeks. “Don’t, Papa. Please don’t. I brought you here to cure you. Not leave you like this.”
“Hush,” Muren replied. “We all have a purpose and that’s cure enough for me.” Then Muren’s hand wrapped around Kirsten’s grip upon the Fahde. “We’ll cure the world, you and I.”
Kirsten shivered with terror. “What are you doing, Papa?”
His voice, young again and pure with unexpected strength, pounded against his daughter’s resolve. “Let me do this.” he insisted. “This is the only way.”
Kirsten heart twisted. She could not control the sword’s blade and she could not break his grip. How had her Papa been granted such sudden strength?
Behind him, Alandris was too lost in the bliss of the weave to notice Muren’s intent.
A distant memory chilled Kirsten to the core. Balinor drawing his blade across Rebel’s throat. Warm blood everywhere. An end to the poor dog’s suffering. A beginning of suffering for her. A sob exploded from her mouth and her eyes flashed. “No, it’s not. I can’t let him do this—”
The Fahde’s point touched Muren’s chest and he smiled.
“Don’t!” Grumm yelled.
The Fahde blazed with newfound light as it pierced Muren, slid through the i
ce and crystal effortlessly, and ran through the figure of Alandris.
Her Papa’s eyes flickered once and wrinkled as if a great joke had been uttered. His lips mouthed words blurred by the ice. Then Muren fell still.
“Fools!” Alandris’s quivering screech reverberated through the ice. “The One’s already failed, knows it, and will end us all. We used all our strength to keep the One suspended and the weave secure but now you have broken our hold upon the One. The Weave will be unmade. The drakes will be reborn and the moons will fall. They will rain down upon all creation. You will be left helpless.” She looked down at the wound darkening her image and her voice broke. “You’ve unmade us all.”
“You started this,” Kirsten shouted. “Not me.” Shaking with rage, she thrust the Fahde through the ice a second time and held her mother upon its blade until the shrieking stopped.
Then she withdrew the blade and stumbled back, numb.
Grumm stepped back, lowered his axe and mumbled some prayers. Olaf retreated a few steps, his eyes wide and transfixed by the sudden transformation.
“There’s nothin’ we can do now,” Grumm offered quietly. “We should go.”
“We can’t leave him here,” Kirsten yelled.
Grumm’s sad eyes met Kirsten’s. “It looks like that’s what he wanted.”
Olaf spoke up. “Grumm’s right. We’d better leave. There’s nothing we can do and I don’t think that we’re wanted.”
Kirsten quivered as she stepped back from the entwined bodies of her Papa and her mother. Energy still flickered through them both.
“And what did she mean by the moons falling?” Olaf whispered in horror. “Was I the only one who heard that?”
The cavern filled with the sound of bells, as if every abbey in the land was collapsing. The entire crystal structure quivered as cracks appeared throughout, and quaked as if the entire island was trying to stand. The walls of the cavern filled with swarming images of drakes, dragons, callings and, alongside the chaos in some sort of balance, a green and peaceful world where thick-limbed, human-shaped figures the height of trees peacefully ambled through forests and fields. The sight of these unknown figures triggered a memory. Had Lian’s beliefs been correct, after all? Were these the One’s first children? Innocent and unchanging? Isolated? Immortal?
The rumbling and shaking of the cavern snapped her back to reality. If the One slept, these images were no better than dreams, she decided. Maybe they deserved something better.
“We’d better hurry,” Kirsten spoke woodenly. Then the world twisted and swirled around her.
She ducked reflexively as all noise ceased. Curtains of white rushed in from all sides. Grumm, Olaf, even the cavern itself, had ceased to exist. She felt the warmth of her pendant pulsing against her neck. The Fahde and shield were heavy in her hands, their lights subdued.
Kirsten’s heart swelled with sorrow. Tears burned behind her eyes and yet would not release. What had she done? She had wanted to save her Papa, and instead she had let him kill himself.
She sunk to her knees and lowered her head. Was everything over? Was this how one died? Her heart twisted and she gripped her pendant tightly. This was Raisha all over again. If anyone deserved death, it was her. Not Raisha. Not Helba. Not her Papa.
The light immersing the room softened. A voice more music than utterance filled her mind. The music formed shapes and meaning that she felt clearly. Above all, she felt its calm.
A calm that effortlessly wicked away all of her pain.
A blanket of ice being thrown skyward.
Thankfulness. Gratitude. Confidence.
The drakes.
Sadness.
The mother dragon.
Pity.
Kirsten’s lips opened in an unspeakable and fearsome epiphany. This was the language of The One. And she felt incapable of understanding.
The music continued to shape.
People the height of trees, with the unblemished smiles and wide, wondering eyes of children, playing in fields of deep green below sparkling waterfalls.
Contentment.
Then concern.
An irreconscilable symmetry.
The innocent children faded from view.
Lands rose from the sea.
Elves, humans, and dwarves appeared.
Flickering pride.
First in the One.
Then in these new children.
Desire. Conflict. Fear. War.
A calling out to the Dragon and her Drakes from his children..
The One quaked with regret.
Kirsten felt her tears begin to fall. She tried to conjure an image of her father. She attempted to project her own feelings as a reply.
Hope gradually emerged, entwined regret.
Gratitude.
Kirsten mustered all of her strength to grasp her pendant and hold it high. She thought of Raisha and the way she once danced in the wind. The way she had healed the sickness of helpless animals. The night she saved Kirsten’s life.
Acknowledgement.
Kirsten tried to think of Helba but a rush of love purged her of strength and she collapsed sobbing.
Acceptance. Mercy.
Mercy? How could that be reconsciled against so much loss?
Trust.
And then Kirsten was in the cavern again, Grumm and Olaf leaning over her, frightened expressions warping their faces.
“Ye had us worried for a moment.” Grumm gently took his shield from Kirsten’s trembling hand. “Let’s get moving then. And watch your feet. I don’t want us trapped here, too.”
“I’m okay,” Kirsten lied. “I’m okay to run at least.”
The three companions dashed from the vault of ice, stumbling and sliding as quickly as they had ever moved before, chased by the frantic screams of countless Chosen, twisted, trapped, and melting.
When they rushed from the tunnel, they found that portions of the ice ceiling were shattering and falling into the water on all sides. Cinn was poised ready to push away from the ledge in a panic. “Thank the One!” he said. “Get in and row, if you want to live!”
Everyone rowed until their lungs were burning and their bodies a contorted ache. It was enough to escape the cavern moments before its collapse.
Through desperate pants for breath, Cinn turned to Kirsten. “Where’s your father?”
She closed her eyes and whispered, “He wanted to stay.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
Kirsten stared into the indigo gloom of approaching night, speckled with countless stars and the gleam of four approaching moons. “No,” she finally said.
Cinn let the silence envelop them.
Grumm tapped Kirsten with a bronze canister.
“What’s this?”
Grumm smiled. “Take a sip. I’ve been saving it for special occasions.”
“It’s spirits?”
“Just a sip, mind ye. It’ll make ye pucker a bit at first but it’ll warm ye.”
“You’ve had that this whole time?” Olaf complained.
Grumm sat back to watch Kirsten take her first drink. She made a face but refused to cough. Grumm smiled. “Yeh. It’s right well chilled now. Ye’ll hardly taste it till after it’s down.”
“You saw what I did to my mother and Papa?”
Grumm’s eyes hardened. “Ye had no choice.”
Kirsten’s voice almost growled her response. “Those are the worst kind.”
Grumm shook the flask. “It’s beggin’ a curse not to toast the dead. Put something charitable in yer mind and take a sip.”
“You’re asking too much,” Kirsten scoffed, but she accepted the flask and raised it tentatively to her lips. Her mind opened to the night she sat with her Papa and he spoke of the stars. It was one of the only times he hadn’t been filled with fear or remorse. She drank.
“Ohhhh. That burns.”
Grumm chuckled. “Pass it around,” he said. “No need waiting for a better occasion than this.”
Cinn’s voice did not add to the mirth. “What occasion is that?”
“We’re alive, good elf,” Grumm asserted. “We’re alive.”
Cinn huffed. “There’s something wrong. Can’t the rest of you feel it?”
Everyone looked towards Cinn. His eyes were filling with confusion.
For the first time that Kirsten had witnessed, Cinn was afraid. She sat up and touched his arm gently. “What’s wrong?”
