by Richard Due
But when Mom and Dad got wind of what was going on, they argued with him. Ebb stopped for a time, out of respect for their parents’ wishes. Bit by bit, though, Lily and Jasper broke him down. They started by arguing for tales he’d already told. Where was the harm in that? They knew all those by heart. They just wanted him to tell them because he told them better. Of course, there would have to be questions. New questions. Uncle didn’t catch himself until he was in he middle of it.
“Now how did we get started talking about the giants of Min Tar?” he said, over their giggles. “You’ve tricked me, haven’t you?”
Sadly, it took only one careless slip in front of their mother or father to halt the bedtime tales again. Their mother would get so furious. Then there would be no more tales for a long time, no matter how hard they pleaded.
“They’re just stories, Linnea,” Uncle Ebb would say to Mom. But then she would fix him with her steely gaze and say . . . what would she say? Something strange. . . .
Lily concentrated, trying to pull the exact words from her memories. But it was stuck, like a splinter in her flesh.
“Just be certain,” she would say. No. That wasn’t right. What was it? “Just make sure—” Yes, that was it. “Just make sure . . . you keep them that way.”
And Uncle Ebb, in a very sad voice, a voice Lily rarely heard, would say, “How could they ever be otherwise, Linnea?” And she would shush him.
But now they were otherwise. Uncle Ebb was missing, and no longer in possession of the moon coin. Lily wanted to find him, but she knew she couldn’t do it alone. She’d need Jasper. That meant getting home—but how?
Lily surfaced from these memories, like a whale coming up for air, and realized her present was going on without her. How many landings had they passed? She vaguely remembered reaching a portion of wall that had been opened somehow, followed by more stairs.
Snerliff and Twizbang had argued there. They’d been expecting to see their mistress waiting for them and they were shocked to find the door open and unattended. They’d argued about what to do. But what did they do? Lily couldn’t remember, although she suspected Snerliff had prevailed in the end.
The stairwell looked so different now. When did that happen? And why had they stopped? Her hand no longer rested on Snerliff’s arm. Where was he?
Lily turned and looked up the stairwell. The two wyflings were a dozen steps higher, staring at an open door. They were arguing about whether and how to close it. We must have just passed through that, Lily thought.
She spoke up, for the first time since they had begun their long descent. “Your mistress must have felt she had no time to wait and left it open for you. And if it’s a secret door, not to be opened, then you should stop arguing and close it right now before someone sees it.”
The two wyflings stared dumbfounded at Lily, like she was some kind of great oracle.
Then Snerliff narrowed his eyes and poked Twizbang in his furry chest.
“See, I told you so,” he said. They stared at Lily some more.
“So close it!” she shouted.
Startled, they jumped at her command. After a brief shoving match, they heaved the door shut. It sealed with a deep grinding sound, leaving only the smoothness of stone wall where, just moments before, there had been a door. Twizbang yelped and leapt spread-eagled at the now solid wall.
“We’re trapped!” he squeaked. “What if we guessed wrong? What if our mistress isn’t on our side of the stairwell? How will we ever get out? We’ll starve!”
“Don’t be silly,” Lily retorted. “She’ll just open it up again.”
The two wyflings slowly turned to Lily, wearing faces like they’d been had.
“These doors,” said Twizbang, in a shaky voice. “These . . . doors . . . are very hard to make appear. It could be days before she could try and open them again!”
“Oh,” said Lily, wrinkling her brow and pursing her lips. “Well . . . you didn’t tell me that.”
“We thought you knew,” they said in unison.
“How would I know? Besides, that’s that.” And suddenly, for some reason Lily could not explain, she felt much better, her spirit of adventure flooding back. “So, which way are we headed?” she asked cheerfully. “Down here?”
The stairwell beyond the secret door danced with shadows. Only a few of the lanterns here were lit, and those guttered as if the next moment might be their last. These stairs were in disrepair, narrow, and more crudely carved—the wyfling stairs especially so, as though they had been hewn from the rock in great haste by trembling paws. The only artworks adorning the walls were those left by spiders who, judging by the size of the webs, were much larger than the ones Lily was used to back home.
Lily skipped down a few steps, stopped, and turned. Snerliff and Twizbang, hugging themselves, hadn’t budged.
“Come on, or you’ll be all alone,” Lily scolded.
Twizbang’s teeth began to chatter.
Snerliff pried his arms loose and stepped down a few stairs. Twizbang pawed the open air before stuffing his paws in his mouth.
“Where do these stairs go?” asked Lily.
Snerliff’s eyes widened. “This stairway leads to . . . The Tomb of the Fallen,” he whispered, his voice cracking on the word “fallen.”
“Have you ever been down there?”
Snerliff paused mid-step, saying nothing, Twizbang slowly swiveled his head to the left and then the right.
Lily decided the wyflings, though furrier, weren’t all that different from the kids she babysat back home. Reaching up for Snerliff’s paw, she said, “Come on then. Let’s go and see.”
Snerliff, who had been so composed in the Great Hall, grudgingly gave his trembling paw to Lily, and, slowly, they started down the stairs. Twizbang’s soft sobs grew fainter. A moment later, he bumped into them. From that point on, all three stayed together, descending the never-ending stairs.
Lily comforted Snerliff, patting his arm.
“Your mistress will be with us,” Lily assured him. She glanced over her shoulder to Twizbang. His teeth were still chattering. “We’ll be safe with Nimlinn,” she said encouragingly.
Snerliff’s face calmed, then became steadfast, as had Witcoil’s back on the crest of the hill following Lily’s arrival on Barreth.
“Yes,” said Snerliff, grateful to be reminded of something that he knew, deep down, to be true. “Of course! You are right.”
Lily’s legs began to ache. She was thinking of taking a break when suddenly she detected a widening of the passage. The stairwell was straightening out and the ceiling was disappearing into shadowy darkness. In another hundred steps, when the stairs were wide enough, Twizbang nosed between them. The steps widened further, and a railing cut from the stone wall appeared, followed by pillars and statuary. Far below, Lily could see the bottom of the stairs bathed in colored light.
As they got closer, the Tomb came into view, not twenty feet from the bottom step. Its beautiful stone doors were swung wide, resting against the face of the Tomb, and warm yellow light from inside spilled onto the foot of the steps.
But that wasn’t the only source of light. The doors themselves held great panels of stained glass, illuminated from behind by what Lily rightly guessed were recessed lanterns. Through the stained glass, the light flickered in deep hues, projecting magnified images in reverse across the bottom of the staircase and up the nearby rock walls. The image in the left panel depicted an orange sun setting—or rising—over a lush forest, with a river running through its center. The panel on the right showed a twilit sky, crowded with moons of varying sizes, over a wide valley. They looked more like windows in a cathedral than the doors to an old secret tomb.
They had begun surveying the tomb when Nimlinn’s huge paws came into view. She was waiting just inside the doorway, once agai
n posed like a sphinx. The instant they saw her, Snerliff and Twizbang darted into the room and posted themselves on either side of her great bulk.
The tomb was crowded with thick pillars, immense lamps, and nine stone slabs, each topped with a reclining figure carved in marble. The low ceiling was comprised of shallow vaults, making it hard to judge the room’s size. On display, just inside the doorway, rested the largest saddle Lily had ever seen. It was inlaid with gilt and silver, and its leather looked as soft and supple as the day it was crafted. Standing around it like sentinels were four short pedestals, whose tops fanned out to create wide, circular tabletops. In the center of each were objects that accompanied the saddle. On one pedestal were large metal discs, as big as hubcaps, but with curved blades sharpened to a razor’s edge. Lily remembered them from Ebb’s tales. They had a special name that, for the moment, eluded her. Suddenly, she wished Jasper were here. He had an encyclopedic memory of all the armaments Ebb had ever described. “Boys,” she muttered. The discs were fashioned with a grip in the center so a Dainrider could hoist one from its pouch and hand it off to a Rinn without either of them being cut by the sharp blades—even when hoisting two at a time at a full gallop. On one of the other pedestals lay blankets; on the third, collars, stirrups, and saddle flaps. The last held open saddlebags turned on their sides, contents spilling out like cornucopias of tack and grooming tools.
Lily stepped farther into the center of the tomb, sidestepping one of the ornate cast-iron lanterns that hung from the ceiling nearly to the floor. In passing, she traced her fingertips across one of the lantern’s tall yellow panes. It was warm.
“Nimlinn, how do these lanterns stay lit?”
“They brighten when the doors are opened, and dim when they are closed. I assume their source to be a magical one, but it is not of this world. Something older, I think. Something lost.”
“Lost? Why do you say that?”
“For a Rinn to perform magic here, on Barreth, is difficult enough, even for one who is skilled. For a Rinn to perform magic on one of our moons, however, is nearly impossible. Only the most highly skilled would have a chance at attempting such a feat, and even then, the force of the enchantment would be but a tiny fraction of what it could have been had the caster been standing on her native world or moon.”
Lily rifled through her memories. That wasn’t right. In Ebb’s stories, each moon had a distinct magic of its own, which did give it a strong home world advantage, but nothing so absolute as Nimlinn was saying. And magic was everywhere in the Moon Realm—at least, the way Uncle Ebb told it.
In the center of the tomb, one of the great burial slabs had been set all to itself. On it lay the stone figure of a powerfully built man, clad in full armor except for his helm, which he held at his waist. The features of his face were strong, and the skill of the artist’s hand showed in the delicate rendering of the man’s long, flowing hair. The edges of the slab fanned out—like the pedestals around the saddle, only wider—making for a museum-like display of what, presumably, this man had once carried.
Lily glanced around at the other slabs. Each figure was distinctive. There were men and women, some in armor, some in robes. But all of the slabs had wide sills, displaying each person’s possessions. Swords, shields, bits of armor, robes, rings, helms, belts, jewelry, folded clothing, boots, and many other odd objects whose uses were obscure. Some of the items were rusted, or, as in the case of much of the clothing and leather, desiccated, cracked, or frayed. And yet, many more of the objects appeared untouched by time, as if they had been placed there just moments ago.
Painted on the walls were murals, accompanied by script.
Lily turned to Nimlinn.
“What is this place, and why have you brought me here?”
“Those are good questions, Lily. And I will answer them as best I can, but only after we are under way. You must understand that our enemy now is time; we have none to waste.”
“Where are we going?” Lily asked.
“Barreth’s next crossover is with Taw. We must reach it in hopes that Aleron, head of Heron Peck, can read the markings on your coin. Only in this way can we assure that you will not be sent someplace more dangerous.”
Lily tried not to think about a valley full of scaramann, and what it must have been like to be in the Tower of Fangdelve when it fell. More dangerous?
And then it seeped in. Nimlinn was trying to save her. “Is this crossover far? How will we get there? What about the scaramann?”
Nimlinn closed her eyes to slits, and her tail flicked.
“If I am right, we have but one full day to get there. And, as for transportation, you will ride upon my back.”
Lily thought about the ride on Roan and knew she would never last a day’s ride holding onto Nimlinn’s fur. Just the thought made her massage her forearms, which still ached.
“Nimlinn, I don’t think I could hold on for one full hour, let alone a full day.”
“You won’t have to. Snerliff! Twizbang!”
The wyflings, already standing at attention, made little leaps into the air.
“Yes, mistress!”
“Laid out about that saddlebag are all of the grooming tools necessary to prepare me for saddle. Now, both of you get to work and be quick about it.”
The two wyflings stared blankly at Nimlinn, as though they hadn’t understood a single word she’d said.
“Quickly!” roared Nimlinn.
Stung by Nimlinn’s voice, Twizbang and Snerliff rushed to the pedestal and seized the first tools that came to their paws. Not until after they had spun around and taken a few quick steps toward her did they seem to truly understand what had been asked of them.
Snerliff eyed the pair of clipping shears—in his own hand!—as though it were a poisonous snake. “You want us to do what?” he shrieked.
Nimlinn’s eyes narrowed. “Groom me for saddle,” she said, her voice simmering.
“But—” yelped Twizbang, “Greydor will eat us!”
“No!” bellowed Nimlinn. And then, speaking more quietly, “He may want to eat you, but I would never allow that.”
Snerliff turned to Lily and gave her the pleading look of one headed for the gallows. Twizbang began to swoon, and Lily thought he was going to faint dead away when Nimlinn roared out so loudly the panes in the lanterns shook.
“Now!” bellowed Nimlinn.
Instantly, Snerliff and Twizbang bolted to Nimlinn’s side, only to halt once more. After a few moments, Snerliff reached out a shaking paw, closed his eyes, and made a pitiful snip, cutting a single strand from Nimlinn’s back. As the lone strand of fur drifted down to the floor, Snerliff pried one of his eyes open and viewed the damage, then smiled haplessly at Nimlinn.
“Our time is short,” growled Nimlinn menacingly.
Twizbang shuffled forward and made a few tentative clips. After that, the pace of their snips increased, and the floor began to fill with Nimlinn’s long, beautiful fur.
“Lily,” said Nimlinn, finally satisfied by Snerliff and Twizbang’s progress, “in this Tomb reside many objects of your people. If Ebbram has been so foolish as to tell you nothing, if you are truly as completely unprepared as you seem to be, then you are in grave danger. I suggest you walk about this room and arm yourself with whatever you believe may aid you in your travels. But do not delay. We will not tarry for a moment longer than necessary.”
Lily nodded. She made a quick pass through the entire tomb to get a better idea of what was available. At one of the slabs, she eyed a pair of golden vambraces, which would have fit nicely on the forearms of a good-sized man, but seemed a bit large even on her shins. She quickly tried on a helmet, but it was cavernous. The shields were also out of the question, and the swords she handled were much too long or heavy. There were bows, but they were nearly as high as her shoulder and she could b
arely budge the one she sampled.
At some point, her attention wandered to the murals on the walls. There was something familiar about them. From Ebb’s paintings, she recognized the creatures of the Moon Realm. She had heard many tales about them. But not these tales.
The largest mural, which occupied the entire back wall, was eerie in that it clearly involved a titanic battle for Fangdelve, though there were no scaramann to be seen. Instead, the skies were filled with great winged insects, belching fire and mounted by archers.
The mural on the wall to the left was much smaller, as the room was twice as wide as it was deep. It told a story in successive panels. The first panel depicted a great tree, surrounded by a circular stone rampart on which rested nine thick pillars. Robed figures stood guard between them. From looking at the different panels, Lily deduced that a small band of people overcame the guards and destroyed the great tree.
The mural on the opposite wall was a jumble of engagements with no resolution. It showed many battles going on all at once. All the peoples of the moons appeared to be involved in some way or another: Rinn; giants; many types of bugs (large and small); great birds; misshapen, man-like creatures that Lily couldn’t place; merfolk; winged dragons; and innumerable humans clad in clothing and armor of varying colors.
The last two murals, placed on either side of the doors, showed scenes of paradise. The one to the right showed the great tree again, with no rampart, pillars, or people, standing alone on an ocean shore. In the mural to the left, the tree stood within the stone rampart again with the pillars and robed guards.
Then Lily noticed there was something besides the murals here. Stowed in carved-out recesses framing the doors were four iron-tipped quarterstaffs, two to a side. But it was the mural of the tree all by itself that tugged at Lily’s attention. Something about it seemed acutely familiar. She had taken only a few steps towards it, to examine the painting in greater detail, when Nimlinn called, “Lily! Surely you can find something here to aid you!”
Feeling foolish, Lily wandered back into the center of the room, where she busied herself by picking up items one after another, turning them over again and again with her fingertips before carefully placing them back down.
