Ellanor and the Search for Organoth Blue Amber

by K T Durham

  Mrs Silverwinkle took a sip of her bubbling spring water. “I teleported to the human realm the morning after you returned. It would have been ideal if I had done so immediately after you returned, but…” She paused and shook her head. “I had to deal with things promptly, before any irreparable damage was done. For one, I had to assure Lily and her parents that you were safe. They were desperately worried when they couldn’t find you in the garden that night. They thought you had left without a word, or worse, been kidnapped. We also had to retrieve the portal and make sure it was safe. It had fallen into the bushes in Lily’s garden after you teleported back to us.”

  Elly was shaking her head wonderingly. “But, what—what did you tell them about me?”

  “Well, I told them I was your grandmother from the north, and you had to leave the party without giving them notice due to a family emergency, and that you were whisked away by your guardian, Mr Greymore, through the gate in the garden fence. I told them you were very sorry that you couldn’t say goodbye. Thankfully they were polite enough not to pry. They were just relieved to know you were safe and sound.

  “Lily and her family are rather nice people, aren’t they? When they realized you had disappeared, Mabel called the Cobbles right away. They would’ve notified the police if I had arrived any later!”

  She paused and fed her budgie a morsel of pineapple bun.

  “Lily asked me whether she could have your postal address, or any way of contacting you. I told her you would be traveling too much to stay in touch properly, but that you will go visit her as soon as you can.”

  At this, Elly almost choked on her drink. Mrs Silverwinkle smiled. “Don’t worry, Lily will be going to the movies with Maddy. She misses you, though.”

  Elly gawped. “I’ll get to visit Lily again?” she asked dumbly.

  Mrs Silverwinkle smiled. “Yes.”

  Before Elly could ask her to elaborate, she continued. “On the way out of the bakery I bought two dozens of Mabel’s pineapple buns. She was very pleased, and sends you her regards.”

  Then she raised an eyebrow. “By the way, Lily is under the impression that you come from a place in Finland called the Aland Islands?”

  Elly smiled sheepishly. “Yes, well, that’s a long story.”

  Mrs Silverwinkle looked amused. “As for the Cobbles, they were dreadfully afraid for you. Miriam almost passed out when I appeared in their kitchen that early morning. The portal is back with them, but not in the dusty broom cupboard this time—they’ve stored it in a safe and appropriate place. They miss you very much, and asked me to send you their love.”

  She grinned. “By the way, at this moment they are on the beach in the Dominican Republic. They are happy you no longer have to worry about tracking down Organoth blue amber. Miriam was over the moon when she took a plane for the first time.”

  Elly beamed, thinking of Miriam sunbathing on the beach while Horace mopped his forehead with his handkerchief and complained about the heat.

  Then she asked the question that had been on her mind. “Mrs Silverwinkle, if you have the gift of teleporting without the full moon, then why… why didn’t you come and fetch me from the human realm?”

  Mrs Silverwinkle’s brow furrowed. Grandpapa and Mr Huerin exchanged looks. The Vierran’s expression remained inscrutable.

  Mrs Silverwinkle walked over to the window and gazed out, standing very still. Then she turned back to face Elly. “I am so sorry, my dear. I could have teleported over and rescued you. But I was… indisposed. I was unable to leave Alendria.”

  There was a noticeable tremor in her voice before she fell silent and glanced at Grandpapa. He nodded and spoke up. “Elly, I’d promised I would tell you more once some matters were clarified.” He stood up, and with a sweep of his hand an image of the Tree of Alendria appeared in mid-air.

  He looked at her solemnly. “What we’re about to tell you, must stay in this room. Do you understand?”

  The others looked at her, equally solemn.

  Elly nodded and braced herself with a shuddering breath.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  What Lies Beneath

  Grandpapa paced slowly around the room and stopped in front of the Larabeth Goldberry portrait. “Do you remember being woken up on the night before your birthday, perhaps while you were sleeping?”

  Elly frowned and nodded; she remembered the tolling of the bells, the shouts, the running footsteps. “But I thought it was just a false alarm. Aron told me some wild wolfhounds had crossed the border.”

  Grandpapa nodded. “Yes, they did cross the border. But we discovered it was only a decoy. By the time we found out, the breach had already taken place. Nothing like it had ever happened in Alendria. We did not want to alarm our citizens, so we kept it quiet.”

  She gulped. “So what really happened that night?” she asked nervously. “Did it have something to do with… the goblins?”

  Mrs Silverwinkle was sitting in her armchair with her eyes closed, as though she was resting. The Vierran remained silent while Mr Huerin twirled a white-feathered quill with his long fingers. Grandpapa sighed heavily. “Yes. As you know, the goblins are subterranean creatures who dwell beneath the Tree. They shun the light, and in the past they made countless attempts to damage the Tree, but to no avail. The goblins hate the elves; they have always wanted to destroy us and take over Alendria. But the roots of the Tree are impenetrable, immune to any sort of goblin assault, thanks to the Maker. However…” At this, he gestured to the image of the Tree he had conjured. Four dots of light appeared on different places on the Tree: white, blue, green, and red.

  Elly stared. She didn’t know what she was supposed to be looking for.

  Grandpapa continued. “Alendria was a star that existed long before the Tree was created, Elly. The Tree is sustained by the four orbs of power, or the luthains as we call it in Yahana. The orbs are vessels that house the powers responsible for sustaining the Tree: light, water, earth, and life. Or in Yahana: graille, lorne, cephrin, and seaul.”

  Elly looked at him wide-eyed. “The four houses of Arvellon Academy were named for the orbs of power?”

  Grandpapa nodded. “Correct. For thousands of years, the orbs were kept in secret locations.” He paused. “But those locations have been discovered.”

  Elly almost dropped her goblet. “Do you mean the orbs were tampered with?”

  Grandpapa regarded her gravely. “Yes. The orbs were poisoned with powerful black magic. The only salvaging factor is that the orbs were not fully poisoned, because we managed to extract the poison just before full damage was done. However, the orbs have been drained much of their powers, and the Tree has become significantly weakened.” He paused. “One of the orbs was hidden in a secret vault in your house, Elly. Your father had been assigned to safeguard it. Thankfully, he discovered the breach just in time. He immediately alerted us. Thanks to him, we are still standing here today.”

  Elly’s mind was reeling. Papa had been safeguarding one of the orbs? “Was that how Papa got hurt?” she asked quietly, recalling the bandage on his wrist on the morning of her birthday.

  “Yes, he came upon one of the perpetrators and tried to fight them off. That perpetrator escaped, and thankfully your father sustained only a minor injury.”

  Elly fell silent. Several months ago, Edellina was looking around her house after Marlow had snubbed her. Edellina had complimented Elly on how nice her house was, how much she wanted to take a look around. Edellina… the goblin… must have been snooping, looking for the secret vault. Elly had been completely oblivious.

  She clutched her goblet so hard her knuckles turned white. “But how did the orbs get poisoned?” She couldn’t bear to hear it.

  Grandpapa gazed out the window. “The goblin named Gutz, disguised as Edellina, went to poison the orbs in the middle of the night before your birthday. Gutz had an accomplice.” He pau
sed: “Mr Holle.”

  Elly cried out from shock. “What! Mr Holle is also a goblin?”

  Mrs Silverwinkle shook her head and spoke up. “No, he had been put under a black spell, probably by Gutz. I’m afraid to say that Mr Holle succumbed to the goblin’s influence much more easily because he was more vulnerable to that sort of temptation. There was always a certain darkness to his aura.”

  Elly recalled seeing Edellina standing next to Mr Holle at her birthday party. Suddenly, it all made sense. “So Edellina—Gutz—was actually in control of Mr Holle,” she said in wonder.

  Mrs Silverwinkle nodded. “Yes. Mr Holle was the goblin’s accomplice, and he was following orders. Together, they could have totally destroyed the Tree if we hadn’t stopped them in time. The orbs were being poisoned within a certain time frame—a matter of minutes, really. Mr Holle, like other elves, can teleport within Alendria, so he must have been able to teleport between the orb locations. According to your papa’s testimony, the perpetrator who breached your house and poisoned the orb there was swift and strong, but not as tall as Mr Holle. Thus, the perpetrator could have been Gutz. Or somebody else.”

  Elly trembled; she had been asleep in bed when her house got broken into and her father got wounded.

  Mrs Silverwinkle continued. “Mr Holle and Edellina were masked, so their identities were concealed when the protectors made chase. We later learned that in the pursuit, Mr Holle was wounded in the arm by one of the arrows shot by the protectors. By the next morning, he was wearing a sling, and he asked to be excused from his teaching duties that day. He told us he had been wounded by a wolfhound while he was out hunting—which was not entirely unbelievable, as Mr Holle was a hunter before he became a teacher. As a hunter, he’d sustained injuries inflicted by those vicious creatures. However, we were suspicious. What was he doing out in the wild by himself late at night? We had no evidence to prove his involvement, but the protectors monitored his movements the following day—your birthday. He knew he was being watched. So he could not meet up with Edellina… until your birthday party.” She looked up darkly. “The black spell that Mr Holle had been under began to wear off after Gutz escaped back to the underworld. Then he finally started telling the truth. That’s how we know what we know.”

  Elly nodded, trying to digest what she had just heard. “Where is he now?”

  “Mr Holle is being taken care of by the healers. He was on the brink of losing his mind, as he had been under the black spell for a long time—around six months, which was how long Edellina the goblin had been with us in Evergreen. Mr Holle needs to be cleansed and purged of the goblin’s foul magic, and for that he must undergo lengthy rehabilitation. He should be more or less back to his normal self by the time he resumes his teaching duties.”

  Upon hearing this news, Elly wrinkled her nose. She didn’t want Mr Holle to teach her ever again.

  Then Mr Huerin spoke up. “But what we can’t figure out is whether or not Mr Holle was the only accomplice. How did they manage to discover the secret locations of all four orbs, not to mention get to all four locations within such a short period of time? Gutz, as a goblin, does not have teleporting powers. Based on our analysis, Mr Holle could only have teleported to at most two locations within that short time frame. That leaves us to wonder whether there was a second accomplice. But by the time we got to asking about that, Mr Holle had become quite delirious. We suspect that the goblin’s black spell was fashioned to break Mr Holle’s mind under intense interrogation. Indeed, Mr Holle has already suffered some memory loss. We had to send him to the healers before the damage was irreparable.”

  Grandpapa nodded. “Mr Holle has addressed many of our questions, but not all, I’m afraid.” Then he fell silent for a long moment, as though deliberating about something. Finally, he turned to face Elly.

  “The Tree plays a crucial role in safeguarding Alendria. I will now show you something, Elly. You may become afraid of what you see. Are you ready?”

  Elly’s heart sank, but she nodded reluctantly.

  Grandpapa then looked at the Vierran, who stood up. He was so tall that he had to bend down on one knee before Elly, who went rigid with the Vierran at such close proximity.

  He extended a large, graceful hand. Blue flames shot up from his palm, startling Elly.

  “Look into the fire,” he commanded.

  Elly glanced at the others. Mrs Silverwinkle’s face was tense. Mr Huerin was nodding encouragingly. Grandpapa smiled when he looked into Elly’s small pale face. “It’s all right. Go on.” He kept his hand on her shoulder.

  She drew a deep breath and looked. Through the flickering flames, she could see the Vierran’s fierce golden eyes staring at her, unblinking.

  Suddenly, his eyes turned fully black.

  Then Elly felt as if she were being literally sucked forward and pulled through a very small hole. Everything became pitch dark, and in the sudden eerie silence she could hear her own ragged breathing. She wheeled around, but could not see anyone. Where were they? With rising panic, her heart pounded faster. Why was it getting so hot? She wasn’t used to the heat, nor was she used to this darkness that was so black and impenetrable that she could not even see her own hands. The air smelled stale, as though no breeze or sunshine ever reached it.

  She jumped when she heard scuttling noises and echoing cries in the distance. Drip, drip, drip. Where was that coming from? Blinking hard, she stared into the darkness. Her eyes slowly adjusted. What was that—did something just move?

  Greymore! Where am I?

  But there was no answer. Her stomach lurched. Why wasn’t Greymore responding?

  She cried out when she felt something slither on her arm. She looked down, terrified, and saw some sort of gigantic earthworm sliding away from her feet. When she looked up, what she saw almost took her breath away.

  High above was an elaborate network of something that looked like a tangle of roots tinged with green that glowed in the darkness. The roots were gargantuan, at least ten times the width of Elly. There were things crawling on them. She could not tell where the roots started and where they ended. They spread out like an umbrella from somewhere far, far above. She looked down, and saw that she was actually standing on one of the thick, winding roots that extended further down from where she stood. Her eyes widened. She wasn’t even standing at the bottom of wherever she was; it went much, much deeper than her eyes could see.

  That was when it dawned on her: She was underneath the Tree.

  Then without warning, she was being sucked downward, hurtling at a terrifying speed. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

  Down, down, down she went. It went on for so long that for a mind-numbing moment she feared the descent wouldn’t stop. But then it did.

  She felt sickeningly dizzy as she clutched her head, her legs splayed out in front of her. She started shivering, her breath rising like steam in the sudden chill air. It was so cold that her heart seemed to freeze over.

  First she smelled it.

  It was a stench so foul that it stung her eyes, and they began to water. She clamped both hands over her mouth and nose as she retched.

  Then she saw it.

  Tangled up in the dense cluster of gigantic roots slept a monstrous, legless creature, the high sheen on its moist, scaly skin moving to the rhythm of its slow, rattling breath.

  Elly kept her hands clamped over her mouth, not to block out the stench now, but to suppress the scream that was threatening to rip out of her.

  Grandpapa! Grandpapa! Where are you?

  Turn away, Ellanor!

  Then the monstrous thing reared its spear-shaped head and hissed, its breath putrid, its thin red tongue darting out like a flaming pitchfork. The creature turned and looked right down at Elly with cold, lidless, blood-red eyes.

  She screamed.

  Elly was still screaming when Grandpapa put
his arms around her. “Shhh, shhh, it’s all right,” he murmured. He shot the Vierran a thunderous look. The Vierran gazed back calmly.

  Mrs Silverwinkle was clutching the arms of her chair, alarm stamped on her face. Even Mr Huerin looked concerned as he gazed at Elly.

  She was crying quietly now, shaking from head to toe. Grandpapa whispered reassuringly into her ear. “You’re safe, Elly. Do not be afraid. The Vierran used his powers to transport only your mind to that place; you would not have been physically harmed. You were never in any danger.” But his face was stony when he eyed the silent Vierran.

  She buried her face into Grandpapa’s warm shoulder. Her skin was cold and clammy, her forehead drenched in sweat.

  “But that thing… that thing saw me. It looked straight at me,” she said hoarsely. “How could it have seen me if I wasn’t really there physically?”

  The Vierran raised his eyebrows and murmured something Elly couldn’t quite catch. Mrs Silverwinkle turned to him and said in a low voice, “It must have sensed her somehow. She didn’t need to be that close. You didn’t need to take her that far.”

  The Vierran looked unfazed. “She may be young, but she needs to know what we are facing. Sugar-coating the situation will not do.”

  Grandpapa shook his head. “But that was not your call to make,” he said quietly. The Vierran fell silent.

  Elly’s shaking eventually subsided. She looked up at her grandfather. “What was that thing?” she asked in a whisper. Even with her eyes squeezed shut, she could still see the terrible blood-red eyes, the slits of black pupils staring at her.

  Grandpapa gently took her hands. “That is the Beast that lies beneath the Tree of Alendria, Elly.”

  “The Beast?” Elly had no idea what he was talking about.

  Then slowly she began to understand. “Was the Tree created to keep that… thing . . . caged?”

  Grandpapa nodded gravely. “Yes.”