Lothriel chuckled as he replied. “The one thing we can’t say about Light Elven females is that they are easy. So, Caia and Thea are your Life Mates?”
Hawk’s affirmative only got more laughter from Lothriel, and an assurance. “I will deal with all of this after I arrive.”
CHAPTER XIII
It took Lothriel mere seconds to gather those he decided he would need, and then to get Olyne to open a gateway for them to cross through the boundary. It was something that brought a greater understanding of what this cost to do to Lothriel. The constant travel by this method was causing other problems for them, which meant they needed to find a different way to travel from one side to the other. Lothriel wasn’t certain how they were going to be able to do this, not when he was in the middle of talks with another entity. Emperor or not, he could spread himself only so thin.
Hawk and Adriel watched, as Lothriel and his advisors quickly crossed through the gateway, then got straight to business. “Where are Caia and Thea? I want to speak to them first. We don’t have a lot of time to waste on formalities.”
Where there had been time to slowly assure Sage and Sahara that what they were about to share was the right thing to do, this time Lothriel cut even the introductions short when Caia and Thea was brought to him. “So you are aware of the position we all are in, we need to cover as much ground in the shortest possible time as possible. Therefore, as Emperor of the Elven Empire, I command you to tell us what you know, as well as the secrets we understand that you refuse to share with your Life Mates about your reasons to stay here.”
Caia and Thea shook visibly at the sight of so many Elves of great power assembled before them. They had never felt so overwhelmed before, and they were gratified when Hawk and Adriel decided to stand at their sides to offer them support. With a shared look between them, Caia began to speak. “The last water portal lies one-hundred and twenty miles offshore. It is so weak that a slight underwater quake or the touch of a sinking ship could cause it to collapse. It has been this way for the last one hundred years. We have hidden two books that tell of how each and every portal came to an end, and what happened to the land when it did. In some cases the change was catastrophic. In others, it had no effect at all. The books are only a matter of history at this point, but they are something we were told that the librarians would want for the archives. They were not to be left behind to fall into the wrong hands when we leave, for there was no telling what kind of trouble that might cause.”
Thea continued, even as she clung to Adriel as tightly as she could. “The closest portal to this one hangs in the air itself. It is not as weak, and a trio of young Elves like Caia and I, who happen to own the land below, guards it. They are careful about those who go there, except for at one time of the year. According to what we were told, if you cross through the gateway on the first day of fall, it should remain intact, unless you take the guardians and their books with you. If this happens, the portal will become unstable, and then collapse.”
Caia took a deep breath and added. “The last portal is in the mountains of the north. The location is guarded by friends, and only they know where it is. Not even the book that once was hidden under the Book Aerie could tell you this piece of information. You must go there on the shortest day of the year. From what we have read, it will not last another year. Our enemies have found out who the last of the Sentinels are somehow. We are telling you this because we fear for them. There are so few of us left, but those of us who are still here need to be protected while we finish what we started. It was written that when our shift is over we would be able to go home by way of the largest and strongest of portals. As we all are aware, this portal no longer exists, and we must look to other sources.”
Lothriel asked. “So. You are aware that the Book Aerie and portal it hid are no longer in existence.”
Caia nodded. “We saw the destruction in a dream. The fire was set from above, and it continued to be pressed downwards while the last of our people had to scramble to crossover into the Elven Empire before the collapse. We saw the edges of the portal shimmer under the strain of so much usage at one time. None of the gateways were ever meant to hold under such conditions. It was a very strong one. Hundreds of Elves crossed through it in only a few days, and as the building collapsed to cover it, Sage, Sahara, Joran, and Tarik grabbed the tomes and raced through. As the rubble from the building and ground overhead landed on top of the portal, it collapsed from the weight and winked out. It was a very close call for our fellow Sentinels. They could have been lost in the rubble along with the history of our kind if they had waited only a few seconds longer.”
Lothriel looked at the High Lord General Gabriella Eagle Claw, and she nodded her agreement. He then spoke. “We will consider the matter while we tie up the last of the loose ends at this end.”
Hawk interrupted, “This is not all. The mermen helped us to capture their command schooner. They reported that there was a lot of information that we might find interesting on it. It seems like our enemy has somehow managed to get their hands on documents they should never have had access to somehow. Arad and his friends are guarding it while they wait for the sea to clear of predators around the ship. They would rather not become a part of the carnage.”
Lothriel looked at the High Lord General Gabriella Eagle Claw, and she replied. “I will see to this matter if there is a way for me to get onto the ship without having to crossover in Dragon form. I would rather not be seen in that form by the people who live here.”
Olyne shrugged. To Olyne it was a simple matter of opening a short-range gateway. If he had a visual of where to open it on the other side, it would only take a moment of his time.
As Olyne began to ask for coordinates, Hawk offered his help. “Use my mind to speak with Arad. We have spoken to each other through this method several times already, so his signature should be strong. Arad can give you information that no one else here can, as he is a merman.”
It took mere moments for a gateway to be opened, and for the High Lord General Gabriella Eagle Claw, Hawk, Adriel, and T’Harris to walk through and onto the deck of the schooner. Caia and Thea stayed behind with Lothriel at his command.
Arad didn’t know who the Elves were who accompanied Hawk and Adriel, but he could tell they were powerful. The moment he saw them come through the gateway, Arad bowed low to welcome them aboard the ship.
Gabriella was quick to begin. “Hawk says you have information we need.”
Arad nodded, and with a motion of his hand spoke, “Follow me. The papers are still spread out on the table where those who last owned them left them.”
Gabriella’s eyes sparkled with humor as she commented. “I understand you took care of them.”
Arad returned Gabriella and T’Harris’ smiles with one of his own as he admitted. “I did, and by now I am assuming they are giving some of sea friends indigestion.”
T’Harris was quick to comment. “In that case, we owe you a debt of gratitude. Now, let’s see what we are up against.”
CHAPTER XIV
The High Lord General Gabriella Eagle Claw was astonished by the amount of information she was suddenly in possession of. Gabriella moved one map after the other as she used her magic to translate the writing on them into Elven. Even as Gabriella was doing it, she knew she would be taking these sheets with her home when she left. There she could study them at her leisure, although she doubted if it would take her long to figure them all out. As Gabriella scanned the written notations, she reached out to Lothriel to have him send Thea and Caia to the ship. A moment later the two Sentinel Guards walked into the room. The moment Caia and Thea took their places on either side of Gabriella, she pointed at a landmark under the sea that had been highlighted. “Do you recognize this area?”
Caia immediately nodded and then followed up by tracing routes to where Gabriella had asked about beginning from where they now were situated. “If we were to leave the west bank of the shoreline where we are at the mom
ent, and swim for ten miles in this direction, we would arrive at the highlighted location. The zone they are specifying is really meaningless, there is nothing there but rock formations that can be dangerous to any ship with a deep draft.”
Gabriella tilted her head and looked puzzled. “Why would they highlight this position if all it does is mark a simple rock formation with little or no value or meaning?”
Thea smiled and answered, “Perhaps because we spend a lot of time there. It is a good place to catch the stronger waves when they roll in from the sea. If you look closely at the small drawings, you might get the idea they suspect the place serves as more than a resting place for us to wait out a good ride back to the beach.”
Caia chuckled wickedly, “I wonder if they still think we were leading them to the portal when we went there?”
Gabriella looked at Caia and asked. “You think these maps are about the portals?”
Caia nodded, and then explained. “You might not be able to read English, but we can. The notes speak of underwater passages into another realm. Their theory is spot on, but their location, at least on this map, is entirely wrong.”
Gabriella flipped the map over to reveal another below it. “What can you tell me about this one?”
Caia’s expression became one of extreme concentration as she allowed her fingers to follow the route that the men had marked onto the new map. There was no doubt in Caia’s mind that whoever had made this out had to have followed Thea and her on some of their more serious trips underwater. “This has to have been drawn up by divers. There is no doubt about it. They also got very close to where the portal exists, much closer and they would have swum through to the other side.”
Gabriella didn’t like the sound of that news. “If they had crossed over to the other side, what would they have found?”
Thea shrugged, “More water, possibly even another shoreline that belongs to a country that resembles this one. Of course, I am only assuming that there would have been a beach as there is one here. We never went through the portal to check these things out for ourselves in person. We have only read about them in the books we were ordered to guard.”
Gabriella asked, “But there would have been water from an ocean on the other side?”
Caia nodded. “There is no doubt about it, one element bonds to the same type on the other side. You will find that the air portal will come out in the sky in the Elven Empire. You just have to be careful crossing from one to the other because it can be very dangerous.”
Thea was more concise. “When our people passed through the portal that had settled in the soil, where did they come out on the other side?”
Gabriella thought for a moment before replying. “On land. In fact, it was close to a couple of rivers similar to where the portal had rested on this side.”
Thea continued. “So you can understand when we say there will be water there as well as here in this case. If the portal was found in the sky, that is where the entrance will take us in the Elven Empire. We just hope that if we have to use one like the air portal that it doesn’t come out over the edge of a thousand foot cliff or something equally dangerous.”
As Thea, Gabriella, and Caia studied the one map, T’Harris flipped through others that had been set aside earlier. A quick gasp from Caia alerted the others to something she had noticed on one of those when she had happened to glance at what T’Harris was doing. Everyone immediately turned their attention to see what had caught Caia’s attention.
Caia pointed to a hand drawn formation hanging in the sky on an old piece of paper. “Someone has been doing their homework, and doing it too well. I’ll grant you they don’t realize they quite know what they have done, but I am fairly certain they got it right.”
T’Harris wondered. “What makes you so sure?”
Thea beat Caia to the answer, “Because we were there several hundreds of years ago, and we saw the halo that is depicted in the picture hanging in the sky at that time. It is situated over an orchard, although I don’t remember where anymore. We visited the area very late in spring, the blossoms had fallen off of the trees already, and they were nowhere as large as they are in this picture. Granted, they have probably been replaced many times over since then, still, this is the place. Either someone has been to the same spot in the not-so-distant past, or our enemies are working with a talented clairvoyant. They do exist, even amongst the humans. I am more apt to believe the earlier possibly than the last one. Most people don’t have a whole lot of faith in anything a soothsayer has to tell them, and this looks like the work of a child.”
Caia sighed, “Still, it is what it is, and the map is incredibly accurate by anyone’s standards.”
T’Harris asked, “How would you know this for a fact?”
Caia replied, “As we said, we were there a very long time ago. Besides this, we have seen different pictures with much the same scene in the tomes were guarding.”
T’Harris and Gabriella exchanged a look as he murmured, “More books that need to be taken home to be placed at the side of others like them in the library of the ancients as quickly as possible.”
Gabriella asked. “Is the portal you have been guarding close to the books you are talking about?”
Caia shook her head to indicate this was definitely not the case. “That would be tempting fate. We have been very careful about hiding our knowledge, and you can see how much good it has done. Either they are questioning something an artist noticed in nature, and are curious about it, or they are trying to find out everything they can about our homeland. I am tempted to believe it is the latter in this case. The information they have gathered points in that direction.”
Thea agreed as she continued to flip through notes and more maps. “Now this one has to be a complete fabrication.”
Caia turned her attention to the picture Thea was holding in her hand, and she frowned. There was something familiar about what had been drawn there. The picture showed a nimbus shinning around a dark hole that was resting on a large rock in the middle of a lava lake. If they looked at the center of the dark hole, they could see shades of a land where there were mountains covered in snow. No, Caia agreed with Thea, this couldn’t be the truth, for the two extremes didn’t match at all. Nature didn’t work this way.
CHAPTER XV
While Gabriella and T’Harris spoke to Caia and Thea about maps that Lothriel knew Gabriella would confiscate at some point, Lothriel pulled Hawk and Adriel back to where he was so he could quiz them. “So tell me what you have found out about the enemy so far during your visit?”
Hawk was the one to reply. “The same people who commands this expedition were those who went after Sage and Sahara. They managed to get closer to Caia and Thea than they did to Sage and Sahara. I believe they have more information about this portal than they had the earlier one too. Where they got it from is anyone’s guess. They were confident enough about their information to try to move in on the girls. I am not sure why though.”
Adriel wondered. “Could they believe that they need Elven magic to safely travel through the portals?”
Lothriel looked thoughtful. Adriel’s point was worth considering. It might definitely be something the enemy would think of as well. If this were the case, it could be dangerous for both sides. Elves were not easy to capture, nor did they go down without a fight. Lothriel had to wonder how they would expect to get an Elf to agree to work with them, even if they managed to capture one.
Hawk interrupted Lothriel’s thoughts. “We haven’t been here long enough to gather much more information than we have shown Gabriella. Our first concern was to deal with the surprise of finding out that we had Life Mates on this side of the boundary. We hadn’t expected that to happen at this time.”
Lothriel chuckled. “Finding a Life Mate never seems to happen at an opportune moment. No matter, it is a part of life, and one we embrace with wholehearted enthusiasm. I am happy for you.”
Adriel admitted, “Before things started ha
ppening, we never had the time to finish cementing our bonds. Afterwards, the merpeople arrived and stayed, and we didn’t have the privacy we felt the situation deserved. These are our customs, and not to be shared with outsiders.”
Yes, Lothriel thought to himself, he could see where Adriel and Hawk might think something like this, although he could hardly see where it mattered if the merpeople would be there to witness the event. Then again, Lothriel knew about things to come that no one else did. Things were about to change for his people on this world, not their lifestyles or their customs, just their location. As far as Lothriel was concerned, it hardly mattered where they made their homes, as long as they were true to their natures and their calling.
Out of curiosity, Lothriel asked. “Did the merpeople happen to mention having problems with the humans?”
Hawk laughed. “As we were told before, the average human is neither good nor evil. It is the stronger Demon strain that seems to cause problems. I got the impression the mermen think the same thing. Although, in their case, they believe the problem is a natural part of the human character.”
Lothriel agreed. “And so it is. Your friends are very astute.”
Adriel continued. “We even refrained from calling you for assistance until we felt it was absolutely necessary. We are wondering what we should do next.”
A slight smile crossed Lothriel’s face as he replied. “It isn’t so much my help that you needed, but Gabriella’s and T’Harris’. They will be able to see what all of this means much more clearly than I ever could and they will then know what needs to be done. You will see what I mean when that times comes.”
Hawk didn’t understand what Lothriel meant, but he was definitely in awe of the High Lord General Gabriella Eagle Claw’s talents, as was everyone else in the Elven Empire. Despite this, Lothriel was Emperor, and he was the one everyone looked to for answers, not Gabriella.
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