by Greg Curtis
“Father!”
Moments later she was with him, and they were embracing and for some reason tears were slipping down her cheeks. It wasn't proper or dignified. It wasn't appropriate for a copper elf or a guardian. But she just didn't care. It was simply so good to be home again. And then her Mother joined them and she lost a little more control. It had been so long.
After that there was tea and savoury bread and lots of stories to be told. Good ones and bad. There was laughter and more crying. And a complete lack of anything that resembled a plan or a thought for the future. But then those things were completely out of their hands. The worlds were ending or at least falling apart a little. Mortals couldn't do anything about that. She wasn't even sure that the gods could.
In time her sister and her family came to join them and for a while Elodie's life was complete again. Whole as it hadn't been in far too long. Why hadn't she been able to visit her family before? For the life of her she couldn't understand that just then.
The hours passed by happily and she got to play with her nieces, which was a delight beyond understanding. And for a time, the pain and the fear was gone. But then they mentioned the changes that were happening in their world, and a little of the happiness was stolen away.
Thiessen was suffering the same troubles as Althern. As all the worlds. Pieces of strange worlds were arriving in theirs. People were arriving and vanishing and not all of those who vanished were able to be found again despite what the wizards were doing. Strange and sometimes dangerous creatures were turning up without warning. The druids and casters were out spending every day, battling to keep things in some sort of order. And everyone was worried. They didn't show it – that would have been improper – but the worry was there.
This could all end. It was a terrible thing, but as the day progressed, it struck her that all of this, everything she knew and loved, was in danger. It could all turn to nothing. All of her family could pass from the world. And she knew that she couldn't allow that to happen. But she didn't know how to stop it. No one did.
Except maybe a dozen people or creations that she never wanted to think about again let alone see. They alone seemed to have some idea of what was happening. And no one else had a clue let alone a thought about how to stop it.
That saddened her, because it told her what she had to do. What she had always had to do even while she'd been wallowing in misery and self pity. And she couldn't stay here with the ones she loved. The Guardian, perhaps the last Guardian, had to return to the Heartfire Temple.
Elodie's face lost its smile when she realised that. This day, this perfect day, had been nothing but a dream. A gift. But the gift had been opened and enjoyed. It was time to return to the normal world. It was time to build a different sort of portal. And to go home. And there was a way.
Chapter Twenty Nine
The portal was done. It had taken her a day and a night to craft it. And the day before that she had spent finding the right location to build it on, smoothing out the land and raising the flat stone bed to lay it out on. Naturally there hadn't been any sleeping in all that time. So she was tired.
But there was no time. There was never enough time. So she drank her now cold mug of Tyla Petal tea, welcomed the strength it brought her and then concentrated on the portal in front of her.
She did not stand on it though. She did not use it to send her anywhere. This was not a portal of the physical for transport. Nor was it one of the mind for sending thoughts. It was instead a portal of unity. A portal for the coalescence of magic. And in this case a particular type of magic – dimensional. This would return the grand portal on the terrace of the Temple to function – even if it was now lost to the primordial darkness and part of the void. Purpose existed outside of physical form. That was the nature of magic – and of creation itself. At least so she had been taught in the Temple. Purpose was what had first come out of the void and then everything else had followed. Of course that was theory. But the elder guardians had seemed certain of it when they'd taught her and the others the magic. And thankfully she'd paid attention.
Naturally finding it was tough. The grand portal itself was gone, and so when she sought it there was nothing to find. There was nothing in the void. But she wasn't searching for the portal itself. She was searching instead for the grand portal's purpose, and while that was difficult, it wasn't impossible.
Once she put aside her mortal understandings and focused only on what the grand portal did there was hope. And the portal did two things. It brought worshippers to the Temple and sent them from it when they were done. And it linked with all other portals. That was enough to focus on. Because there was nothing else in existence – or non-existence – that did those two things.
So when she called, it answered and she could begin to see it somewhere in the distance. She could go to it, in her thoughts.
Eventually she found it, a beacon of intention in an endless darkness and she pulled it to her new portal. And then the two of them became one.
How they did that, she couldn't have said. Her eyes told her one story. A tale of symbols in rick merging and glowing and somehow recombining into a new pattern. Her magical sight told her something else. A wild tale about magical energies combining and turning into something orderly. Something with an intention behind it that caused the various currants of magic to flow smoothly. But the will of the Guardian within her told her the true tale. Purpose. The grand portal had been created to bring worshippers to and from the Temple, and to be linked to all other portals. Now it was reborn. There was just one problem. It was in the wrong place.
Elodie collapsed to the stone when it was done, exhausted. And she saw that the sky had darkened while she'd been casting. Hours had passed. But that didn't matter. Nor did the pain in her head. Her task was only half done.
So she lit the fire again – it had burnt out while she had been working – and put the kettle back on it. More tea would help. So would a little rest. And then she raised a small mound of earth to sit on and drank her mug when it was ready, thinking as best she could, about nothing at all. She had to clear her mind of everything. Just prepare herself for the next, perhaps even more challenging, part of the casting. To move the new grand portal to where it needed to be.
In theory that was impossible. Portals were connected to where they were cast. It was their very nature. But the grand portal had never been cast in a specific location – at least not a physical one. It had been cast instead at a certain distance from the Heartfire. That was its nature.
Because of that she knew, as she sipped at her tea and stared at the immense construction in front of her, it could be done. Because the grand portal had been reborn perfectly in front of her, and that was a miracle in itself. If she could do that, she could do the rest. If she could keep her eyes open.
But she couldn't. And she decided not to try for a while.
The moon was much higher in the sky when she opened her eyes again, to discover that she'd fallen asleep. But that was alright. She'd lost perhaps a few more hours of time, but she had recovered a little more strength. Enough she hoped, to do what she needed to do. And after re-stoking the fire and drinking yet another mug of the tea, she set about it.
Elodie stepped out into the reborn grand portal and welcomed its immense complexity to her. Drinking in all its wonder and form as if it was the very tea she had just consumed. And then she found the Heartfire within its very centre and brought the two together.
A heartbeat later she could see nothing – but even as she wanted to panic, she remembered why she could see nothing. The portal had returned to where it had been – the terrace. And now, she was in the primordial chaos – though thankfully not actually. If she had been, neither she nor the reborn portal would exist any longer. This was just a seeing.
Next she lifted herself and the portal up, until they emerged from the darkness and into the sunlight above the volcano.
Elodie breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the blu
e sky, though of course there was still a problem. The portal had moved closer to the Heartfire in one respect, it was still just as far away in a straight line, but on the flat as people walked it was closer. Unfortunately it wasn't on the flat any more. It was now hundreds of paces up in the air, high above the terrace. That first step off it would be a fatal fall for those who arrived.
Which meant that since the primordial chaos completely ringed the Heartfire in a perfect circle, she would have to find a section of the volcano that was high enough up without actually being right over the mouth of the burning cauldron, on which to site the reborn portal. That mostly involved circling the Heartfire caldera at that height until she finally found a location where the stone was high enough to let the reborn portal settle on it.
It wasn't a perfect location for a portal of course. There was no flat stone on which to site it. And it was nowhere near the entrance to the Temple. But it was the best she could find.
So with her heart in her mouth, she finished the casting, connecting the grand portal to the volcano. And a heartbeat after that she knew she had succeeded even as she started tumbling down the side of the volcano. The volcano side was at a steep angle.
Fortunately she was able to grab on to an outcropping of rock and stop herself from tumbling all the way down and into the ring of black fire surrounding the volcano. That would have been an unfortunate way to end her efforts. But she had expected the problem and she had been ready for it.
After that she sat there, actually lay there on the stone, and simply breathed.
She'd done it! She was back on Prima. Back at the volcano. And the grand portal had been reborn and relocated. People could come and go from the Temple again – not that they needed to any longer. There were now plenty of thrones out there where they could sit and advance their gifts. And besides, this portal was still locked, only available to her. But then only she really needed to be here. The last Guardian.
In time she started on the last part of her work. After first levelling out the stone underneath the portal so that anyone else who came here didn't unexpectedly find themselves tumbling out of control into oblivion as she nearly had. She was never going to do that again! But once the stone was flat she started carving a path from the grand portal, around the side of the volcano heading down to the distant terrace.
It took time. She had to smooth and layer each step along the way one by one. But it was simple magic, an easy cast that required little concentration. Just the gift and the will. That was good as it gave her time to regain a little of her strength and put her thoughts in order. And to stare at the great wall of void only a few score paces away as the crow flew, and know a little dread at the sight. Maybe that was why she decided to add a stone balustrade to the steps. No one was ever going to tumble down the volcano into oblivion if she could help it.
Hours later she was standing on the terrace again with the primordial darkness perhaps a hundred paces away from her, while the door she'd sealed shut when she'd closed the Temple from its attackers, was right beside her. And for the first time she began to wonder if she was doing the right thing.
Opening the door would be simple. It had never been locked to her. Facing those she knew were inside it, was going to be much harder. But it had to be done. And more than that, in the days since she'd been with the dryads, she'd realised she could. If the perfect elves were in fact the thrones, then they had to obey her – she hoped. Her mistake before had been in not knowing what they were, and their mistake had been in not recognising her either. Ignorance was always the mother of mistakes.
She took a deep breath and then placed her hand on the stone. “Open.”
With just that word hundreds of tons of stone abruptly lifted itself up off the ground and began pouring itself back into the volcano walls it had come from and once again the entrance to the Heartfire Temple was open. It was magic, but it wasn't hers. It was the Temple's. She was a guardian and the magic of the Temple was hers to command.
So were the thrones, now that she knew what they were and if she had the will to command them. At least that was her hope. She was working from guesses and theories – and not even her own. Just what the dryads had worked out. She had to hope they were right. And yet, she was sure they were – almost.
Elodie steadied her nerves and then stepped into the Temple.
“I am Myless Elodie Mae, the Guardian of this Temple,” she announced to the darkness inside. “And you will attend me!”
The moment she announced that to the Temple she could feel the response. She could feel the Temple awakening and see the lights returning to life. It was a good feeling, though nothing that she had not known before. What was different was that she felt it awakening within her. That she remembered who and what she was. For a long time she had forgotten that. She had forgotten who she was. And that she thought, was shameful for a guardian.
Elodie walked on down the long central passageway heading for the Heartfire at the far end.
“You have returned, little one.” The first of the perfect elves turned up when Elodie was barely fifty steps down the passageway.
“Were you not listening? I am Myless Elodie Mae and I am the Guardian of this Temple. I serve it as do you. And as such you will serve me.”
“You speak –.”
“The truth,” Elodie finished for her. “As you well know throne.” She continued on her march to the Heartfire. But one thing did bring her a little hope. The woman hadn't approached her before she'd entered the Temple. And she suspected she knew why. The twelve of them couldn't leave it. They were trapped in it, bound by the fact that the thrones themselves were physically attached to it.
“So you know who we are?”
“I know what you are, not how you came to be, nor why you seem to be failing your purpose. But that is largely unimportant. You have a purpose, to bring the magic of the Heartfire to the peoples of the world, and you are failing it. We must correct that.” Again it was a guess, but she was certain she was right. And the fact that the perfect elf was listening to her, and hadn't attacked her, only added to her certainty.
But she'd expected that. Or maybe just hoped. It wasn't completely clear. But what was clear was that they hadn't killed her when they'd come across her the first time. They hadn't crippled her even. They'd merely sent her away to somewhere they'd thought she could heal. At least that was her thought.
Elodie marched on, and more of the perfect elves joined her. But they didn't say anything. They just fell into step beside her.
In time she reached the Heartfire terrace and she could feel the heat of the fire embracing her once again. Filling her with its warmth like a blanket that somehow embraced every fibre and sinew of her being. She held her arms out wide and enjoyed it. If only for a matter of a minute or so. She didn't have time to linger.
“Now tell me, how have you failed your duty?” she addressed the others with a growing confidence. “And how may it be fixed?”
Their answer was only silence however, and when she heard that her confidence failed her. They didn't know. She'd hoped that they would.
“So we will begin with the basics. Before anything else went wrong one of my people, a guardian, failed in his or her duty and removed books from the library and gave them to the sprites.” She hated saying that. She hated even thinking it. But as the days had passed, Chy's words had stayed with her and she knew they were true.
“That is how they gained the knowledge to create whatever enchantment they created on the terrace that brought this chaos to the Temple's door. And you recognised that enchantment.”
“First steps therefore are to find out what books were taken, who took them, and what that enchantment does. And what the mistake was that they made in casting it. Do you have that knowledge or can you get it?”
“We can,” one of the men answered her.
“Then please go and do it.” She turned away from them and held her arms out wide again to welcome the Heartfire to her while th
ey left her to do as she told them to do. Really though, they should have done that on the very first day they'd been awakened. But they couldn't do that. Because like any magical construct they would do nothing unless they were commanded. So what they had done to her had been only what they had been commanded to do long ago. Defend the Temple. Identify any threats. And since they hadn't known who she was before they had invaded her thoughts, they had assumed that she was a threat. After that of course they hadn't known what to do. So they'd done nothing.
But none of that mattered just then as she stood there and welcomed the return of the Heartfire to her. This was what mattered.
It had been too long, she thought. And yet this wasn't home she realised. It was something perhaps even more important than a home. It was who she was. Maybe even what she was. She was the last Guardian.
Chapter Thirty
One full week had passed. And the next was almost over. And the party had learned nothing. Nothing that was except that N'Diel was a slave world. The furthest thing from a paradise that Fylarne could imagine. But no one ran it. They had wandered from one camp to the next. They had seen thousands upon thousands of slaves digging out the Heartfire containing lava. Watched it being loaded on to carts without end. And then seen it carted away. But in all that time they had never once seen an overseer. No one with a whip or a weapon. No one barking orders. Just wretches. People of all races dressed in rags. Often barefoot which had to be hard in this freezing cold. Working themselves to the limits of their physical abilities. Even the children. And all of them believing that they lived in paradise. That this was the life they would have dreamed of.
