"But you don't know where the princess is," the pencil protested.
"Then we'll try every tunnel, every passage, every snake of an entryway until we find her."
"But you have the key. The NiDemon will take it from you. All will be lost. You have to go back. You heard Gallund. He said there was no gain in rescuing Windy."
"He was wrong. And as for they key—" Ilien shuffled forward, digging his hands along the slimy floor until they fell into a deep crack. "No one will have it." He dropped the key into the crack. He expected to hear its small clink as it hit bottom, but no sound ever came.
"Now let's go." He rose, stroking the wall to get his bearings in the dark then dug out the map. "You'll have to tell me where to go, not show me."
"No. I won't," said the map.
"You're right," Ilien said. "I could just rip you into a thousand little pieces."
"No! No!" cried the pencil. "What he means is Globe is coming back!"
Ilien's heart jumped and he peered around in the darkness, but the void remained unbroken. Then suddenly he saw it, the light of a single star in the distance. It grew to a bright moonlight and the shadows fled before it. It was Globe! A blazing sun spinning toward them up the tunnel!
"Globe! You've come back!" Ilien exclaimed.
Globe careened toward Ilien like a love-sick puppy and Ilien had to shield his eyes from its blinding light. "Down, Globe. Down. Not so bright!" he laughed as the magical light frolicked around him.
"She's excited!" said the pencil.
"She?" Ilien asked.
"She says she's found Windy!" the pencil added. Globe spun in circles and the shadows danced a jig on the wall. "She's not far! Back one turn and straight on, with no blank spots to pass through."
Ilien peered down the tunnel. The shadows squirmed beneath Globe's pressing light. Back one turn and straight on to Windy? With no blank spots to pass through? "It's too easy," he said. "It's just too easy."
Globe dimmed and came to rest on Ilien's shoulder.
"It's about time something came easy," mumbled the pencil.
Chapter XXIII
NiDemon
Not far now, the pencil whispered in Ilien's mind. The tunnel runs straight, then loops left. After that—
"I know. I know." Ilien pinched his nose. The putrid smell of spanstone filled the air. The NiDemon was close, but that meant Windy was close, too. As an afterthought, Ilien waved his pencil through the air as Gallund had back home. "Is the smell gone?" he asked.
"Ilien. We don't have noses," his pencil replied.
"Oh yeah." Ilien removed his hand. The smell was gone. He couldn't believe it. He nearly smiled, until he remembered what had caused the smell in the first place.
The NiDemon. The most feared of Reknamarken's servants. A creature of the netherworld. Even Gallund had paled at its mention. And here he was, a boy who weeks earlier had nothing better to do than lay stretched out by the stream behind his house, hoping not to catch a fish that would disturb his slumber. A NiDemon. A creature that chilled the hearts of the Nomadin themselves, a monster that at that very moment held Windy prisoner. The thought of the princess in danger suddenly filled Ilien with a fierce desire to run forward like a king's knight with his shining sword held forth to save her. But he held his place in the gloom, a small boy with nothing more than an obnoxious number two by his side.
"I heard that," said the pencil. "Would you really feel better if I was a sword? If you think a sword is going to help you face the NiDemon, think again. Do you think a sword, magical or not, can harm a NiDemon? Even I, an obnoxious number two, am powerless. It's you, Ilien. Only you have the power necessary to stand before it."
"I know that! Don't you think I know that? Isn't that what everyone keeps telling me?" Globe dimmed at Ilien's outburst and Ilien himself cringed to hear his voice echo loudly down the tunnel and around the looping left.
"But you have to believe it," whispered the pencil. "If you don't, there's no point going any farther. If you don't then the next steps you take may be your last. And Windy will die, too."
Ilien looked around at his friends, every one of them an inanimate object, not one of them a real person. Globe shed barely enough light to see by, and in the dusky silent moments that followed Ilien could almost believe he had finally lost his mind. He crouched in a smelly puddle of muck a mile from daylight talking to his homework.
But we are real, and so is the NiDemon, said the pencil through his thoughts. "And so is the danger Windy faces, we all face, including you. Especially you, if you refuse to believe in yourself."
But how could he believe in himself? How could he believe everything the Swan had told him when she'd been so wrong about so much? Maybe Gallund was right. What if he wasn't ready to face the NiDemon? What then? He was just a boy after all, a boy who desperately wished he was back home and had never heard of Giants and magic and adventures. A boy. A boy dammit! Why wouldn't anyone believe him?
Ilien hung his head. "I'm just a boy."
Globe floated down to hover over his shoulder, brightening until Ilien could see his own wavering reflection in the puddle of slime beneath him. The frightened face of a twelve-year-old stared back at him through the darkness.
Ilien turned from his reflection. "I'm no more a powerful Nomadin than Globe is a person."
"Don't be so sure about that," came a whisper.
Ilien jumped and fell back. He peered up at Globe in surprise.
"Yes." Globe pulsed with each word it spoke. "Looks are deceiving, aren't they?"
"What are you?" Ilien lifted his hands from the slime and wiped them on his pants. "Why is it you've never spoken before?"
"I could always speak," Globe replied. "You were just never ready to listen. The question is, Ilien, what are you?"
Globe hovered closer and Ilien searched deep within its light for a sign of what it was. "Make up your mind who you want to be," said Globe, "or life will choose for you."
Ilien's face was lit with wonder as he gazed into Globe's soft aura. "But what if I'm not who I choose to be? What if I'm only fooling myself?"
"Will choosing otherwise help?" Globe asked. "Be, then do, then have, Ilien."
Ilien turned away, suddenly preferring the darkness to Globe's piercing questions. "Stop talking in riddles! Now is not the time for riddles!"
"It's no riddle," said Globe, floating closer. "First you must be. Be the person you want to be. Then you must do. Do the things that he would do. Then, and only, then will you have it."
"Have what?" Ilien turned toward Globe once more, her gentle glow softening the hard outlines of his face.
"Have what you wanted all along, the name you chose for yourself at the start." Globe floated all the way down to the tunnel floor and Ilien couldn't help catching his refection again. The sulking boy was gone. An awe struck young man stared back. "Be, then do, then have," said Globe.
Ilien looked hard at himself. What he saw didn't fit. His hair was long, no doubt from spending the summer as far away as possible from his mother's shears. But there was more. His face had lost the boyish curves he remembered seeing reflected in the lazy ponds around Southford while fishing. Now it stared back sharp and angular. His eyes fixed himself with an icy glare, hard and unforgiving. When had he come by those eyes? How had all these changes occurred without his knowing? He glanced down at his hands, strong, almost man's hands.
He scooped up Globe from off the floor, rose from the puddle of drool and cast the magical light into the air before him. "If the NiDemon wants the child of Nomadin wizards, it'll be sorely disappointed," he said as bravely as he could. "It'll get a Nomadin instead."
"That's the spirit!" cried the pencil.
Ilien turned on the pencil in anger. "Keep it down!"
"No respect," mumbled the pencil. "I'm telling you, no respect."
Globe cast just enough light to show the way as Ilien continued on, his footsteps echoing forward and around the looping left of the tunnel. Almost immedia
tely a thin light from further ahead painted the tunnel walls a soft orange, and a faint thump, like a distant drum, rose to drown out Ilien's footfalls.
The light grew brighter and the drumming louder as they rounded the bend, only now a sharp click followed each drum beat. Thump-click. Thump-click. Thump-click. Ilien looked at Globe, who only dimmed in reply. The tunnel curved sharply to the right and they came to a door, a small wooden door that leaked bright light from its edges. The thump-click, thump-click behind it beat on.
Now what? Ilien thought.
"Open it," whispered the pencil. Globe seemed to agree for she moved over to light the wooden surface.
"But how?" The door was a smooth, polished slab of wood with no visible handle, no hinges for that matter, only a small circular hole in its center at eye level. A peep hole, thought Ilien.
"Or an eye," the pencil muttered.
Ilien hung back for a moment. When it didn't blink, he tried looking through it.
"I can't see a thing," he said, leaning on the door.
The door swung suddenly open and Ilien tumbled into bright yellow light, falling flat on his face onto a thick, wooly rug. The thump-click of the beating drum stopped and Ilien scrambled to his feet. Globe all but disappeared. She hovered in the air like a dust mote.
Bright lights hung from the ceiling—strange, flameless torches. The room was small, no bigger than his study back home. Pictures hung on the white, painted walls, portraits of brooding men, some standing, some sitting behind ornate desks. The pictures were everywhere. A desk and chair dominated the center of the room, more pictures sprinkled upon it. Beside the desk, poised over a small box was—Gallund?
No. Not Gallund, but an old man with such a resemblance that it could have been the wizard's brother, except for his strange clothes. The man wore a striped blue and grey coat, tight fitting, like an officer's uniform, with matching grey pants and shoes as bright as polished onyx. As he bent over the box, he held a small rod in one hand, one end of it attached to the box, and beneath it a black, circular disk revolved on a spinning, round platform.
The old man looked up in surprise and stopped the disc from turning with his hand. "May I help you?"
Ilien stared without speaking, then glanced at the black disc.
"Oh. This? It's nothing." The old man picked up the box and placed it under his desk. "Really. None of your concern." He turned back to Ilien, pulled a handkerchief from a breast pocket of his suit and wiped his hands. "That's that. Now how may I help you? Yes. Right. You must be lost." He moved from behind the desk. "Back out the door, that's a good child, now run along. If you hurry you can make it home for dinner." He guided a dumbfounded Ilien toward the door.
Ilien stopped and turned to face him. "Wait. Who are you?"
The old man rolled his eyes and moaned. "Listen kid, I'm being awfully patient here. No questions, okay? Just run along home before it's too late."
Ilien looked around the brightly lit room. The faces of the men in the pictures glared at him. He glanced back where the strange box with its spinning disc had been. There, on the other end of the desk, lay a feather, a small smooth stone and a key—a silver key.
Ilien pulled away from the man's grasp. "Where is she? Where's Windy?"
The man threw up his hands. "That's it. Now you've done it," he said. He pulled something from his pocket, aimed it at the door and walked back to his chair behind the desk. "Time's up. Too late. You've had your chance."
The door behind Ilien vanished.
"Unbelievable," the man said. "Truly unbelievable." He began opening drawers. "What those Nomadin won't stoop to. Incredible! Sending a boy to do a man's work."
"Where is she?" Ilien demanded, his mind racing. This was not how he pictured things happening. A room beneath a mountain, a room with a desk and pictures on the wall, and that strange box. And now him, this oddly dressed old man with the shiny black shoes, this—this—
"NiDemon?" The man looked up from the drawer he was rifling through. "That is what they call me, isn't it?" He looked back in the drawer and smiled. He reached a hand inside and fumbled for a moment with the item he'd been searching for. "It's too bad you didn't leave when you had the chance. Now, I'm afraid, it's too late. Now you must pay for your ignorance."
Ilien looked to the drawer then back at the leering man before him, and shrank back in fear.
The NiDemon pulled out a small, black book and laid it on the table. "Name?" he said, throwing the book open.
Ilien's mind raced. There had to be a spell he could remember, a spell to defend himself against the NiDemon's dark magic. Something! Anything! He throttled his pencil.
"What did you say?" he asked suddenly, looking at the NiDemon in confusion.
"Your name," the man repeated, drumming his fingers on the desk. "What is your name?"
Ilien stared at the little black book in silence. "Tell me where she is!" he cried suddenly, pointing his pencil at the NiDemon.
"No, no. Thanks anyhow but I've got my own," the old man replied, holding up a quill pen for Ilien to see.
Ilien stepped forward, his face twisted in anger. "Tell me!" he shouted.
The man's eyes hardened and his bony knuckles blanched around the pen. "Listen boy, forget what those bastards told you, that you're special, you're the one, the only one, only you can save the Nomadin-child. Forget it! They're cowards! Worse than cowards, sending a boy to save the prophesied child. Now give me your name!"
Ilien advanced. "Tell me where she is or I swear I'll—"
The man's hands flew to his mouth. "What? Turn me into a toad?" He shook his head and laughed. "Where do they find these kids anyhow?" He placed his palms on the desk in front of him and sighed, regarding Ilien with the hint of a smile, but beneath the outward expression a dangerous impatience lurked. "Now listen to me very carefully." He pinned Ilien with an icy glare. "You are not a wizard. You are just a boy, probably from a broken home."
Ilien started and the NiDemon raised an eyebrow. "Father left when you were three, I suppose? Believe me, you're nothing special. I've seen a dozen of your kind in my time, each the same, each a cookie-cutter version of the others. All victims, really. Sad, but true. And you're no different. The Nomadin seem to cling to your kind, as if for the umpteenth time that they fail to destroy Reknamarken they think the umpteenth and one will work. You've been duped, boy. Tricked, brainwashed, programmed. You are no more a wizard than I am a monster. Now give me your name, please!"
Ilien aimed the pencil at the NiDemon, sighting down its length till its tip pointed directly between the man's eyes. "You're right. I'm not a wizard. A wizard's power pales to mine. I am Nomadin, like my father. I am the prophesied child and I possess powers beyond any mere wizard."
The NiDemon raised an eyebrow. "You? The prophesied child?" He studied Ilien for a moment, then burst into raucous laughter. "I've heard it all, now! The prophesied child! Powers beyond any mere wizard!" His laughter turned frenzied as he beat his palms on the desk. "And he's pointing a pencil at me!"
"Don't listen to him, Ilien," the pencil said. "Go on. Show him what we can do."
Globe brightened to a shining spark and danced in the air around him. "My name, sir, is Ilien Woodhill." Ilien squinted down the length of his pencil. "Mitra mitari mitara miru!"
A strange hum emanated from the pencil as Ilien kept it aimed at the NiDemon's head. He'd never heard that noise before. The hum turned to clicks, the clicks to knocks and finally the pencil made a sound like a mouse passing gas and a tiny puff of smoke issued from its tip, a perfect white ring. The NiDemon watched the advancing smoke ring, his eyes wide. It broke and faded to nothing in front of his nose.
More laughter. "Mitra mitari mitara miru. Mitra mitari mitara miru." The NiDemon chanted the spell over and over like a schoolyard bully. "Mitra mitari mitara miru." But each time he did so an object in the room turned into a toad. The feather, the lightstone, the key, the pictures on the desk, even the pictures on the wall. Globe raced forward,
a blazing star swirling around the NiDemon's head. The NiDemon raised a finger and she froze in the air and fell to the ground as a phosphorescent toad.
Toads hung everywhere, bleating and croaking, draped on the desk, hopping across the floor, stuck to the walls. Finally, the only things not turned to toads were the NiDemon, the desk and chair, and Ilien, still holding his pencil in shaking hands.
The old man fell silent. His eyes flashed red in the gloom—most of the lights had been turned to toads as well—and he rose from his chair and advanced on Ilien.
"I tried to tell you. I did," he said, and Ilien retreated toward the vanished door. The NiDemon's eyes glowed brighter, like two stoked stoves. "But you just don't listen. You are nothing. You never were. That's why they chose you in the first place." As he drew closer, a pair of shadowy humps rose from his shoulders. "You are just a boy, a lost and lonely boy looking for the father he never knew. Powerless."
Don't listen to him. His pencil's voice echoed in Ilien's mind. It's not true. He's trying to break you down.
"Powerless," said the NiDemon again. "Frightened and nothing. Your pencil means well, but it's wrong. You are nothing. Not a wizard. Not even a man. And most definitely not the prophesied child. You're just a boy, a boy without a home, a boy who's been used by the Nomadin he looks up to, but a boy nonetheless. A boy! And that is why I know you are nothing because the only Nomadin-child in all Nadae is a girl, my boy. A girl!"
Ilien backed into the wall where the door had been. His pencil, held at his side, was silent. "That's not true. I'm the one," he whispered.
The NiDemon walked closer, growing taller, eyes ablaze. "It is true. I was there. I brought her before the Swan with the others. Gallund and Gilindilin, both so hopeful, so sure in their belief that the Swan could help, could make it all go away. I was there. The Nomadin-child was a girl."
He stopped a step from Ilien. The shadowy humps on his shoulders stretched out into wings as black as night. "She is a girl, and you are nothing!"
Nomadin Page 25
