by Brindi Quinn
I struggled with that constant temptation for what seemed like weeks, but then that, too, faded away. How long we walked, I don’t know, but the longer we spent in that land of beyond, the less I felt like myself. The less I felt like a person.
Then, one day, everything changed. It changed abruptly and without warning.
We’d been walking in silence when Darch cried, “Wait a sec!”
We all stopped and turned to him. It was the first thing any of us had said in very, very long time.
“This is all wrong!”
“Wrong?” I asked, but even as I said it, I knew it was true.
“Don’t you see?” Darch was growing more excited by the moment. “We aren’t going anywhere!”
“What do ya- Oh!” Grotts could feel it too. “Yer right!”
One by one, the others realized what I’d just come to understand. We were moving, but we weren’t traveling. The moon was still there, just off to the right. The feet were above us, the glossy blackness below. Nothing had changed since the beginning of the long trek. But that was the problem. We hadn’t made any progress at all.
“Do you guys see?”
“Yes, I do.” Scardo nodded and looked around, confused. “I see it now, but how is it that you were able to tell? It’s nearly as though we were in a trance or under some other type of sorcery.”
“Because of Ardetto!”
“What? ME? Why, whatever do you-?”
“If we were traveling toward the realm of the angels, you’d start to . . . I mean.” Darch was struggling with the thing he was trying to say. In the end, he choked down whatever it was and said simply, “Start to . . . you know.”
I had no idea what that meant, but Ardette did.
“Hmph. Very good work, Darchy,” he said, smirking.
“Ardette?” I said, eyeing the Daem with suspicion. When those suspicions were confirmed by the pleased shine in his eyes, I began marching toward him, pointer finger of accusation outstretched and shaking. “You knew? You knew that we weren’t getting anywhere?!”
“Is that a titch of self-righteousness I sense coming off of you? Hm. Well, yes. . . . Of course I knew.”
Grotts grabbed him by the collar. “Then why didn’t ya say anything?! Ya mean we wasted all that time walkin’ and gettin’ nowhere?!”
Ardette was calm. “Get off, would you?” Grotts let go, but didn’t lift his glare. Ardette sighed and straightened his wrinkled shirt; then he continued, “How much time do you think passed? Hm? Anyone? Care to take a guess? Here, let me help you. NONE.”
“None?” said Scardo. “Prepost-”
“Yes. None. There’s no time here, remember? I knew that we were going nowhere, but I let it go on so that he,” – he threw a hand at Nyte – “could heal. I was also allowing our little Heart to get over her addiction and letting all of you clear your heads. Apparently, they’re clear, or you’d still be wandering aimlessly.”
“Are you serious?!” But now that I knew that no time had actually passed, it didn’t seem like we’d been walking for very long at all. It was all such a strange existence.
Ardette beamed because I’d just understood. “See?” he asked.
“Tch.” I sighed. “Yeah, yeah. But still . . .”
Scardo joined in the sigh and shook his head at Grotts. “So, where are we to go from here?” The hunched man was calmer than before because, like me, he could also feel that timelessness. “We can’t very well wander for . . . fornever, so what are we to do?”
Ardette shrugged. “Not a clue.”
“Argh! You are utterly worthless!” cried Rend.
“Well, we could always go back that way. You see, the buggy’s just a few steps back.”
“Pray tell, why would we desire to return there!?”
Ardette opened his mouth to egg her on, but Nyte put up a hand. His expression was one of curiosity. Cupping his ear with one hand, he pointed with the other to the left and said,
“Over there. The way forward is over there. We simply need to break through.”
“Er- we do?” asked Grotts. But how can ya tell?”
“Ah, yes.” Ardette was again smiling a smile thick with cunningness. “Another observation I’ve for you, Elf. Has your ‘detection’ of the spirit’s cries ceased? You can no longer hear them?”
Nyte nodded. “It is the same for you, is it not, Darch?”
“Sure is!”
“My, my, how puzzling . . . I wonder why that could be? Oh well. A true mystery-”
“Just spit it out, would ya? Ya dang git.”
“Hm. Why don’t you have noble Elf tell you? I’m sure we’d all love to hear his explanation.”
Nyte shook his head. “I do not have one to present to you. However, one thing is certain.” He again stretched out his finger. “There. Right there. I can hear something. It is so faint that I did not notice it under the spell of this space before. But now I am without doubt. There are voices similar to what I heard in the mist. Only, these voices are not malevolent. They are at peace and they are . . . fluid. They are so fluid that, in unison, they sound akin to water. Yes, the voices are like flowing water.”
“Water? So that’s the way?” Scardo squinted at the space. It looked like everywhere else in the beyond. “But how are we to break through?”
“Ahoy! I’ve got it!” yelled Trib, and since she hadn’t yelled in a very long time, it made us all jump.
“See you’ve reclaimed your energy. Wonderful.”
“I know how to do it! This whole thing was set up at the time of the Making, right? So we probably need the power of the original races, right? So that means that we need-”
“Nyte and Rend to use their power!” Darch interrupted her in a frantic, obvious blurt.
“Uh . . .” Trib was thrown off a bit, but she recovered quickly. “Sure thing!”
That had been way too obvious, even by Darch’s standards. I stared at the suspicious Magir, who’d taken to twiddling his thumbs in a manner way to intense for the action, and drilled him with unspoken accusations.
Do you really think you’re fooling anyone? There’s something going on, and I demand to know what it is! I expect this sort of behavior from Ardette, but you, Darch? Why? You told me your ‘story’. You told me about Lusafael’s involvement and even about your secret talent of reading the unseen moon. So why won’t you fess up? What’s so big that you have to continually hide it?
Obviously it was about Ardette and his weird, emotion sharing relationship to his brother.
But what?!
Darch could feel my eyes on his forehead, burning, but he didn’t offer me anything but a fishy, fake yawn.
Right. Like you expect me to believe that you’re tired all of a sudden?
He forced another.
I continued to stare and wouldn’t have lifted it until he caved, except for, something else caught my eye, drawing me from him and back into the rest of the group. Nyte had just sent a blast of red energy at the ‘spot’. However, rather than bursting open a hidden passage, the light zoomed off into black oblivion.
“Was it not strong enough? Rend, join me.”
Together they cast a second blast, but nothing came of that either.
Rend was quickly growing frustrated. “ARGH! Surely you are mistaken that Elven power is needed to open the way! Clearly, our powers are useless!”
“Right!” Trib pounded a fist into her open palm. “All right, good-looking people, guess that just leaves-”
“That precious hammer of yours, Grotts.”
This time, Ardette had been the one to cut in, though he’d done it in a much less suspicious manner. Maybe my hope lay in Trib. Maybe I should make her my interrogation target. Darch’s twiddling had since transformed to bouncing.
“My hammer?” Grotts pulled it into himself defensively. “Why’s that?”
“I believe we need something physical to break through this unphysical plane. With dear ‘Papa Pietri’s’ enchantment placed on it
, it might be able to accomplish what their failing power couldn’t.”
Rend scowled at his calling out of her ‘failing power’.
“Alrigh’ then, if ya say so.”
Grotts brought up his hammer to take a swing. He held it mightily between his fists, stature tall and face composed. Then he took a breath and sent it forward in a diagonal swing. The rest of us watched and waited in anticipation, but it was all for naught. The hammer made contact with nothing, and Grotts went flying forward in the aftermath of too much momentum. He hit the black ground with a bang and slid forward against its glossy top. The whole thing looked ridiculous – a grown man swinging with full force at nothing.
“Grottsy!” Kantú ran forward to tend to the fallen man.
Ardette frowned. “Hm. Well, that failed miserably. Yes, I’d say it failed even more than our first attempt.”
Rend was snickering rudely at the scene, but Nyte was poised. “May I try?” he asked.
“Er- ya sure ya wanna do that?” Grotts was rubbing his hip.
“Yes. I vow that I will let no harm come to your weapon.”
“Sure. I guess.”
Nyte helped Grotts to his feet, then took the hammer from him.
“Be careful, Nyte,” I said. It was kind of stupid, but I couldn’t help saying it. I couldn’t help falling into the roll of ‘concerned girlfriend’.
Nyte sent me a playful grin. “Am I not always careful? I believe you are getting me confused with a certain songstress . . .”
“Ha. Ha.”
“Enough! Can we not get on with it?” Our flirtatious bout had been enough to get under Rend’s skin. She was no longer snickering.
“Yes, move along, would you?” Ardette’s frown deepened.
Nodding, Nyte proceeded to ready his hammer. “Step back,” he ordered.
Rather than holding it above his head, as Grotts had done, he gripped the weapon like a sword, ready for a sideways slash. The stance was probably done only out of habit, but he looked fierce. A readied warrior. With flexed back muscles, the concentrated Elf took in a breath. He was about to swing, but something happened before he could follow through. The hammer, which had only ever glowed blue before, suddenly pulsed with red energy up and down its handle.
“What is this?” Nyte broke concentration. “I am transferring directly into it?”
“That’s right, Nytie!” said Darch, beaming eagerly. “It’s working! You’re in command of the hammer’s enchantment!”
Nyte nodded. Then, without blinking, he swung the hammer across himself at full speed. The hammer came around and struck the air, stopping hard against something invisible.
“Th-there is something there!” Scardo joined Darch’s excited dance, though his looked more like a nervous squirm.
A chunk of space fell out of the place where the hammer had hit, revealing something beyond. Within the broken piece of space, there was somewhere bright. Somewhere sunny. Somewhere much different than the stagnant space we’d been trapped in.
And there was the sound of water. Fluid, streaming, singing water.
Chapter 9: The Wells
“The Living Brook,” said Trib, reading from the old rock marking the new, sunny area.
The space wasn’t black with nothingness. It wasn’t white with mist, either. It was clear. Sunlit, warm. It was like we were outside in the best part of summer. A brook rushed by our feet, which were now shoeless and buried in soft grass. All around us, there were trees with emerald leaves and russet trunks. And this outsideness stretched on for miles.
“You can read that?” asked Scardo, as amazed at Trib’s deciphering as I was. He pointed to the stone post. Its carving was of the same scroll we’d seen at the Orolian Tunnel.
“Sure I can!” Trib raised her shoulders like it wasn’t a big deal. “It’s Angelic!”
So it was Angelic? Those etchings marking the door to the tunnel and the small dwelling were really something like that? I’d suspected as much, but I’d thought it impossible.
“How, pray tell, can you read Angelic?” asked Rend.
“Well, it’s actually really similar to ancient Elftongue. Uncle Bergra-”
“Oh? Should have assumed that the all-knowing Bergra had something to do with this.”
“Keep it down, old man. Let me finish!”
Ardette cracked his jaw in annoyance.
Trib continued, “It’s important for a girl to know her Elftongue. Especially a pirate set on crossing the great ocean! So, naturally, I’m fluent in tha-”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Grotts. “Back up a sec here. Did you just say ya want ta cross the great ocean?” He let out a grisly chuckle. “Why the heck would ya wanna do that?”
“Adventure! What else?”
Ardette raised a brow at her.
“Oh fine! Gold too, I guess.”
“Ha!”
Moving right over how ridiculous the notion of Trib crossing the great ocean was, I said, “So, you learned ancient Elftongue, and your uncle was somehow able to teach you Angelic?”
“Yo-ho! Spot on! You see, on one of his travels to the other side, he brought with him an artifact for contacting an ancient Elven scholar. You might just think of him as a sad old miner, Grottsard, but the truth is, he’s been trying to discover the truth of the mist for a very long time. Before Deca died, he was trying to contact Aunt Viella. And before that, my great aunt, Seral. He’s always had an obsession with this stuff.”
“Akin to your obsession with piracy?” asked Ardette.
“Guess it runs in the family. Anyway, in hopes of discovering some of the mist’s secrets, he studied up on an Elven scholar named Elder Roran. You two heard of him?”
Nyte and Rend shook their heads.
“I’m not surprised. What with your records such a complete mess. Anyway, he found Elder Roran’s name on an old stone tablet at the back of one of the mines. He thought that maybe it could be used as a memento to call the Elf to him in the beyond. Well, guess what? It worked! Uncle Bergra contacted Elder Roran, and Elder Roran told him so many things! Things like-”
“Now I understand,” said Ardette, narrowing his eyes. “So it’s actually all third-hand knowledge you possess? Typical.”
“Hey! It’s better than nothing!”
“So,” I said, trying to keep things moving. “One of the things Roran taught him was the trick to Angelic?”
“Yup! It’s actually pretty easy once you learn the patterns. That is, if you already know ancient Elftongue.”
“Uh-huh.” Rend didn’t appear convinced. “Tell me, I cannot be the only one who thinks this all sounds stupidly far-fetched! It is impossible, is it not, for the dead to share their secrets? Is it not heinous to upset the departed? To rip them from their eternal slumber? Surely something so evil would not be tolerated?”
“Evil or not, that’s how it went!”
“Are you, Cousin, content with this?!”
“Rend, it is time that you come to terms with the fact that things are not the way we have come to see them. Is this not evidence enough for you?” He gestured to the Living Brook.
“I agree, Rendsy!” chittered Kantú, tail swishing nervously. “I think its super creepy!”
“Did you just call her-?” But I couldn’t finish because an enormous snorting laugh was coming up my throat.
“Speak not of me so lightly, hybrid! Or I shall show you the true power-”
“Ya’ll do what now?” The hammer was back in Grotts’ hands, and he started stroking it with malicious intent.
“Do not make me laugh!”
“Who’s tryin’ ta get ya to do that? If I wanted ta hear an evil cackle, I’d go find The Mystress.”
“WHAT?! How dare you compare me to that wretch?!”
“Okay, guys.” Darch put out his pacifist hands. “I think that’s enough.”
“Yes, please do stop,” said Scardo. “It is highly immature of you to carry on in such a way.”
“What do you know, y
ou worthless, zebron-devouring Sape?”
“Pardon me?! How dare you!” And just like that, the hunched man was thrown into the squabble.
That was fine. It gave Nyte, Ardette, and I a chance to close in on Trib.
“Okay, Trib,” I said. “What else does it say? There’s got to be more, right?”
“There is! Huh.” She studied me. “Maybe you aren’t so out there after all!”
“Out there?! Where is ‘there’?”
Nyte and Ardette didn’t try to hide their amusement.
Idiots.
Trib didn’t make any effort to elaborate on my ‘out there’ status, either, leaving me to feel insecure and wonder just how it was that I was coming across that way.
I mean, I know I’m a little ditsy, but ‘out there’ and ‘dee-doo’? That’s like . . . that’s like ‘crazy’, right? RIGHT?!
Trib changed her focus to the sign.
“It says: The rushing tree’s voice will guide the traveler.”
“The rushing tree?” asked Nyte. “What does that mean?”
“Oh! Wait! Sorry! It’s not ‘rushing tree’. It’s ‘rushing spirit’. The characters for those two are so close!”
“Fascinating.” Ardette’s expression was as dry as his tone. “So then, we’re to follow a spirit onward to somewhere?”
“To the realm of the angels? Maybe? I mean, if it’s written in Angelic, then there’s a chance that’s where it’ll take us, right?” I said.
“Exactomundo!” Trib raised a fist. “There’s more! Let’s see here: The rushing spirit’s voice will guide the traveler to the celestial kingdom.”
“Really?!” I cried. “That’s great! But what’s the ‘rushing spirit’s voice’?”
“Ah, yes. I take it that’s where you come in, Greeny? You can hear them again, can’t you?”
Nyte nodded. “Yes, but it has become bearable now. They are respectful of my susceptibility to them and speak only in murmurs.”
But it was still very disconcerting.
