The Elven

by Bernhard Hennen

  “Come on,” Farodin called. “It’s beautiful and horrible at the same time. Like looking into the water in Emerelle’s bowl.”

  Nuramon went ahead to Farodin. Now that he stood so close to his companion, Farodin said he could almost physically feel Nuramon’s exhaustion.

  “You have to rest,” Farodin said.

  Nuramon shook his head without emotion. “He needs me. The only thing keeping him from dying is my healing power. We have to find water. I . . . I’m afraid I won’t be able to hold out much longer. Are we still following the elven path?”

  “Yes.” It had fallen to Farodin now to lead them along the invisible path. They had cast lots for which of the three Albenpaths to follow. And since it had fallen to Nuramon to keep Mandred alive, it was up to Farodin to keep them on the right track. It had to lead somewhere, even if only to another Albenstar.

  “What did you want to show me?” Nuramon asked.

  Farodin pointed some distance ahead, to a flat patch of rock that was almost completely buried beneath the sand. “There in the shadow. You can see the direction from my tracks. Do you see it?”

  Nuramon blinked against the bright light. Then he smiled. “A cat. It’s sleeping.” He started to walk toward it happily.

  Farodin followed behind, more slowly.

  Curled up close to the rocks lay a cat, its head lying on its paws. Its fur was a yellow ochre and matted with sand, like the braids in Mandred’s hair. It was emaciated, the body haggard and the fur disheveled. It looked asleep.

  “See where her head sticks up slightly above the rock?” asked Farodin.

  Nuramon stopped.

  You had to be very close to the cat to be able to see the back of its head. It was bare. More than bare. The fine, blowing sand had worn down the fur and the skin beneath and had polished the bone of the cat’s skull, making it gleam white.

  “She looks so peaceful,” said Nuramon gently. “She laid down in the shadow of the rocks, fell asleep exhausted, and died of thirst in her sleep.”

  Farodin nodded. “That’s what must have happened. The dry heat preserved her body, and the rocks protected her from the flying sand. She may have been here for weeks. Maybe even years. Impossible to say.”

  “And you think it’s like looking into Emerelle’s bowl? Is that our future?” Nuramon asked.

  “If we don’t find water soon. And I don’t hold out much hope of that. Since we came through the Albenstar, we have not seen a single animal. Not even tracks. Nothing living walks this desert.”

  “The cat did,” Nuramon replied, with surprising vehemence.

  “Yes, she did. But coming here was a mistake, and she died for it. Do you think Mandred will live to see the next sunrise?”

  “If we find water . . .”

  “Maybe we should slaughter one of the horses and give him the blood to drink.”

  “I think it would be better if one of us took the two strongest horses and rode ahead, switching the horses when they get tired. You or I, we could cover a lot more ground and look for water.”

  “Which of us do you have in mind?”

  Nuramon looked up. “Is that so hard to guess? My healing power is keeping Mandred cool and alive. You can’t do that. I’ll stay behind. The horses will last until at least this evening. If you find water anywhere, let the horses drink, then fill the canteens and come back in the cool of the night.”

  “And if I don’t find water by sundown?”

  Nuramon looked at him without expression. “Then you have another day to save at least your own life.” Farodin returned his gaze as if sizing him up. “A day on horseback will preserve your own strength. I’m sure you’ll get through another day that way. It makes no sense to then come back to us.”

  “A solid plan,” Farodin said and nodded appreciatively. “Thought through with a cool head. It’s just that it would take a braver man than me to see it through.”

  “A braver man?”

  “Do you think I could stand before Noroelle and tell her I abandoned my two companions in the desert so that I could find her?”

  “So you still believe you can find Noroelle like that?”

  “Why not?” asked Farodin harshly.

  “How many grains of sand have you discovered since we came back to the human world?”

  Farodin lifted his head defiantly. “None. But I have not been looking. I was . . . the heat. I’ve been using what little magic I have to cool myself a little.”

  “Which would hardly have used up all your strength.” Nuramon gestured broadly to the expanse of horizon. “This here is what has robbed you of your strength and your courage. This view. I don’t believe that we are here by coincidence. Fate wanted us to understand how senseless our search is. There has to be another way.”

  “Then how? I can’t listen to you going on about some other way anymore. What is that other way supposed to look like?”

  “How do you think you can find all the lost grains of sand?”

  “My magic carries them to me. I just have to be close enough.”

  “And how close is that? A hundred paces? A mile? Ten miles? How long will it take to search the Other World? How will you ever know for certain that you have found all of them?”

  “The more I find, the stronger my seeking spell becomes.”

  Nuramon swept his arm over the desert again. “Look around you. I don’t even know a number to use to talk about how many grains of sand are out there. It is utterly futile . . . and because you obviously have the strength to attempt the futile, then you are the right one to look for water here. If one of us can do it, it’s you. Use your magic to find the next waterhole.”

  Enough was enough. “Do you think I am that stupid?” Farodin asked. “Finding something as tiny as a particular grain of sand in a desert is one thing. Finding a waterhole is far, far simpler. Do you seriously think I haven’t already used my powers to search for water? Why do you think I showed you the dead cat? That is our future. There is no water within at least a day’s ride of us. Only the water inside us. Our blood . . . It’s as simple as that. I tried the first time just before I saw the cat. There’s nothing.”

  Nuramon gazed east. His face was strained. He seemed not to be listening to Farodin at all.

  “Has the sun burned the last trace of civility out of you? Say something. Did you even hear what I said?” Farodin demanded.

  Nuramon pointed ahead into the empty desert. “There. There’s something there.”

  A gust of wind puffed a thin wave of sand toward them. Like a breaker against a rocky shore, it collapsed onto the few rocks protruding from the sand. Not far behind it, a second thin wave of sand followed.

  “There it is again,” shouted Nuramon, excited.

  “What?”

  “We’re standing here on the Albenpath. It runs through the desert as straight as an arrow. Imagine it going straight on from here. A little over a mile, I’d say . . . See how the flurries of sand blow over it. There’s something there.”

  Farodin looked where Nuramon pointed. But there was nothing to see. No rocks, no dunes. Just sand. He looked doubtfully at his companion. Had he lost his mind? Had the hopelessness of their situation driven him mad?

  “It happened again. Damn it . . . look!”

  “We should try to find a little shade,” said Farodin, trying to sound soothing.

  “Another wave of sand is coming. Will you please look.”

  “You . . .” Farodin could not believe what he saw. The sand wave split. For a second or less. Then the gap closed again. It was as if the flying sand had glided over and around a rock that had momentarily blocked its path. Except that there were no rocks there.

  Farodin’s hand automatically fell to the grip of his sword. “What is that?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Some kind of invisible
creature?” Who would benefit from being invisible? A hunter. Someone waiting for prey to wander past. Had he been secretly watching them, waiting for them right now on the path they were planning to follow? Farodin drew his sword. It felt unusually heavy in his hand. The sun had drained the power from his arms.

  It made no difference what was out there. They had to face it. Every moment they hesitated only cost them more of the little strength they still had. “I’m going to take a look. Watch what happens.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better—”

  “No.” And without letting himself get caught in more discussion, Farodin swung onto his saddle. He held the sword angled across his chest.

  He reached the place in a few moments. Once again, the desert had deceived him, making something look much farther away than it actually was. He found a ring of dark basalt stones set into the sand. They looked like large cobblestones. Not a single grain of sand lay on the flat stones. Was it a magic circle? Farodin had never seen anything quite like it before.

  He walked his horse around the stones. The blowing sand divided around the circle as if it were running into a glass wall. Some distance from the circle, half buried, Farodin noted a low, inelegant pyramid made of quarry stones. A human skull perched on top of it. Farodin looked around and noticed a number of other low stone mounds close by. On one of them lay several human skulls. What kind of place was this? Alert, he looked around, but apart from the stone ring and the mounds, there was no sign that either humans or elves had ever lived here.

  Finally, Farodin dismounted. The ground there was steeped in magic. Albenpaths came from every direction and merged inside the ring. Carefully, the elf stretched one hand toward the invisible barrier. He felt a light tingling in his skin. He stepped into the ring. Nothing held him back. Apparently, the aversion spell on the circle only kept the sand at bay. But why the skulls? The coarse mounds did not match the elegant plainness of the ring itself. Had they been built later? Were they meant as a warning?

  The area bound by the basalt ring measured a good twenty paces from one side to the other. The stones that formed it were a single pace across, if that. Inside the ring, the ground was sandy, no different from the desert all around.

  Farodin closed his eyes and tried to turn his mind entirely to the magic of the Albenpaths. There were six paths that met inside the ring. Opening a gate here would be easy. And wherever it spat them out again, it had to be better than this desert.

  He waved to Nuramon, who brought the two horses and Mandred.

  “An Albenstar,” Nuramon cried in relief. “Salvation. Open the gate.”

  “You can do it better.”

  Nuramon shook his head angrily. “I’m too exhausted. It is all I can do to keep the last spark inside Mandred burning. You have learned the magic, too. Do it.”

  Farodin cleared his throat. He was about to say something, but checked himself. He almost wished there had really been some kind of invisible monster lurking there. The way of the sword, that was his way. The ways of magic were still foreign to him, despite all the hours he had spent learning from the faun oak.

  He laid his sword on the sand and sat with his legs crossed and eyes closed. Then he tried to free himself from every thought, every fear. He had to empty his spirit and fuse it to the magic. Slowly, before his inner eye, an image of paths of light formed, paths that crossed in the darkness. And where they crossed, they also distorted. Their lines warped and twisted into a vortex. Every Albenstar was unique, with a distinctive pattern of these interweaving lines at its heart that differentiated it from every other star. Experienced sorcerers used the patterns to orient themselves as they traveled the Albenpaths.

  Farodin imagined himself reaching into the middle of the paths of light with his hands. Like a gardener untangling tendrils of flowers, he pulled them apart in his mind until he had created a hole that grew larger and larger and finally transformed into a gate. It emanated a dark attraction from within. It did not lead to Albenmark.

  Unsettled, he opened his eyes. He was looking at the naked, gleaming skull atop the pyramid of stones. What was it trying to warn them of?

  “You’ve done it,” Nuramon said, but there was doubt in his voice that belied his words.

  Farodin turned around. A gate had opened behind him, but it looked completely different from the one that Nuramon had created. Bands of light in the colors of a rainbow streamed around a dark mouth that seemed to open into nothingness. A line of white light, straight as a ray of sunlight, cut through the dark, but it was not able to brighten the blackness that surrounded it.

  “I’ll go first,” said Farodin. “I—”

  “I think this gate leads to the Shattered World,” Nuramon said. He gazed at it with a look of frank unease. “That’s why it looks different. It looks just as the faun oak said it would.”

  Farodin ran his tongue nervously over his lips. He reached for his sword and slid it into its scabbard. With the palm of one hand, he patted sand from the folds of his breeches, realizing even as he did so that he was doing it simply to delay making a decision. Then he stood up. “The gate is wide enough. We can go through together if we lead the horses.”

  As they stood at the threshold of the gate, Nuramon said softly, “I’m sorry. It was not the right moment to argue with you about the grains of sand.”

  “Then let’s have the argument some other time.”

  Nuramon did not reply. Instead, he tugged at the reins of his horse and stepped forward.

  Farodin had the feeling that the gate actually sucked him in. With a jolt, he was inside the darkness. He heard a horse whinny but could not see it. The line of light had disappeared. He felt like he was falling, falling for an eternity. Then he felt soft earth beneath his feet. The darkness dissolved, and blinking, Farodin looked around. Icy fear took hold of his heart. The spell had failed. They were still standing inside the black ring of basalt, and the desert stretched away to the horizon on every side.

  “Maybe I should try—”

  “Our shadows,” Nuramon cried. “Look. Our shadows have disappeared.” He looked up to the sky. “The sun is gone. Wherever we are, it is not the world of humans.”

  A high-pitched cry sounded in the sky above. Overhead, a falcon circled. It seemed to be observing them. After a while, it turned and flew away.

  Farodin looked up to the sky, a radiant blue that paled slightly as it neared the horizon. No clouds, no sun. The elf closed his eyes and thought of water. The more he focused his thoughts on water, the drier his mouth felt. Then he could sense it. It was like being momentarily dunked into a fresh mountain spring.

  “That way.” He pointed to a large dune on the horizon. “Before sundown . . .” He stopped and looked up to the sky again. “Before it gets dark, we’ll find water over there.”

  Nuramon said nothing. He simply followed Farodin. Every step drained a little more of the energy they still had. They were so exhausted that they could no longer walk on top of the soft sand. Instead, like humans, they sank to the ankle with every step they took.

  The dune they were walking toward seemed just as far off as when they started. Or was Farodin just imagining that? Did time stretch endlessly when there was no sun overhead to measure the passing hours? Had half an hour or half a day passed when the blue of the sky, finally, began to fade?

  When they eventually reached the dune, they were on the verge of collapse. “How is Mandred?”

  “Unwell,” Nuramon replied. He continued to set one foot in front of the other without stopping or looking up.

  Farodin’s silence demanded more than any question.

  “He’ll die before dawn.” Nuramon still did not look up. “Even if we find water, I don’t know if I can save him.”

  Water, thought Farodin. Water. He could feel it. It wasn’t far. He slogged onward. The dune was worse than the plain had been. With every step, they sank into t
he deep sand, but also slipped back a little, as if the dune was trying to fend them off, to prevent them from reaching its crest. A light wind drove the fine grains into their faces, burning their eyes.

  When they finally reached the ridge, they were too drained to take any pleasure in what lay before them. It was a lake, its water a deep blue, fringed by thousands of palm trees. Strange halls stood close to the shore.

  Only two low dunes still separated them from the oasis. They half trudged, half slipped down the back of the large dune they had just climbed. Their horses neighed high-spiritedly. Now it was the horses leading the elves, pulling them along as they held on to the reins. The beasts had scented the water.

  Without warning, something slammed into the sand beside Farodin. He reflexively ducked to one side. A black-feathered arrow had just missed him, but he could not see the shooter anywhere. And the falcon was back, circling over their heads again.

  Then the air was filled with a whirring sound, and a cloud of arrows came flying over the low dune ahead. They stabbed into the sand just a few steps in front of them, forming an almost perfectly straight line, like a border they were not allowed to cross.

  When Farodin looked up again, riders had appeared above them on the crest of the dune. There were three dozen, at least. They were mounted on animals the elf had never seen before. With their long legs and strangely formed heads on top of curving necks, the beasts were so extremely ugly that it took his breath away. They had white fur and a large hump growing on their backs.

  The riders wore long white cloaks. Their faces were veiled. Some carried sabers, others were armed with long spears with hand guards, from which colorful tassels dangled. But most striking of all were the leather shields they carried. They were shaped like a pair of giant spread butterfly wings and were just as brightly colored. The riders looked down at the two strangers and said nothing.