by M. L. Forman
“Whatever is in these woods, I wish it would show itself or leave us be,” Halfdan complained loudly as he cooked their evening meal.
“Perhaps they are unsure of us,” Sindar commented. “There are many good creatures who are simply shy of strangers.”
“Sindar is correct,” Bregnest added. “Even the centaurs were less friendly than other creatures I have met. I think it is because adventurers seldom come here, and they do not know about us.”
“Or they might know more about us than we care to think,” Sindar commented happily.
“Maybe they don’t like over-jolly elves,” grumbled Halfdan.
“Perhaps not,” Sindar agreed.
The next day things were better. They no longer heard movement around them in the woods and the feeling of being watched had lessened. Andy claimed that the smell of Halfdan’s boots had driven off the unseen creatures, but Halfdan was in no mood to be teased.
It took the company four days to make their way through the enchanted wood, and with each day that passed, Bregnest grew more tense. Alex knew that Bregnest didn’t want to spend the winter in Norsland, but it was beginning to look more and more like they would have to. Ahead of them towered the Mountains of the Moon, and they could already see the outline of the first gate in the distance.
“Should we press on, or wait for morning?” Bregnest asked.
“It will be dark soon, and we may lose our way if we press on,” said Andy.
“We need to rest and eat,” Halfdan added.
“We should go forward as fast as possible,” Val commented, looking toward the gate. “If we do not push forward, the snows may trap us here.”
“I think we should move forward early tomorrow,” said Alex. “We will all think more clearly after some food and a little rest.”
“Sindar, do you have anything to add?” asked Bregnest.
“I agree with Alex,” said Sindar, his gaze fixed on the gate. “We will need to be thinking clearly when we reach the gate or our adventure may end there.”
“Very well then,” said Bregnest in a defeated tone. “We will eat and rest. When it comes time for the last watch, we will all rise and move forward to the gate.”
Halfdan busied himself cooking their evening meal. Andy sat down beside the fire, still trying to loosen his stiff neck, while Bregnest, Alex, Sindar, and Val all remained standing at the edge of the woods, looking toward the first gate.
“Our time grows short,” Bregnest said softly.
“Perhaps Usel was wrong. The snows may not begin as soon as he thinks,” Val offered in a hopeful tone.
“Centaurs know many things that others only guess at,” said Sindar. “We have time yet—at least two more weeks to find the Horn and start back.”
“And the Horn may be waiting for us at the first gate,” said Bregnest, sounding hopeful.
“And if it is, will we not seek the treasure of the tower?” Val questioned.
“The treasure of the tower is not our goal,” Bregnest answered. “If we had more time I might consider it, but if the Horn is at the first gate, we will turn back before winter comes.”
“Of course,” said Val. “I only thought that the treasure of the tower would be worth an extra day or two.”
“Not if it means we must remain in Norsland all winter,” said Sindar.
“You seem very quiet, Alex,” said Bregnest, a questioning look on his face. “Are you troubled?”
“No,” Alex answered with a sigh. “Just lost in thought.”
“And are your thoughts hopeful?” asked Sindar, turning to look at Alex.
“It is nothing,” said Alex. “The road has been long, and my mind and body are both tired.”
“Then come and eat,” called Halfdan. “Eat and then to bed so your mind will be fresh tomorrow. I don’t want to meet the guardian of the first gate with a tired wizard by my side.”
“Wizard in training,” Alex corrected. “And if you don’t want me along, I will gladly wait here for your return.”
“No offense,” said Halfdan, winking at Alex as he handed him a plate of food.
“Tired or not, I want Alex along,” said Andy. “I’ve seen him in action, and I don’t like the idea of facing the guardians without him.”
“I’ll be there,” said Alex. “And I hope there won’t be any action to see.”
“We should rest,” said Bregnest as he ate. “Whatever tomorrow holds, at least we will face it refreshed.”
But Alex couldn’t sleep that night. For several days he had felt that there was something important he needed to remember, something that was always just out of his reach, and the fact that he couldn’t remember what it was troubled him.
* * *
They started toward the first gate before the sun had risen the next morning. The night before it had looked only an hour or two away, but as they walked across the frozen land, the gate grew larger and larger in front of them. It was midday by the time they finally reached the first gate, and they all stood looking at it in wonder.
The gate was at least two hundred feet high and appeared to be made of solid granite. After a few minutes of looking at the gate, Alex realized that it hadn’t been built at all, but rather it had been carved out of the mountain. The path passed exactly through the center of the massive structure. There were no doors or bars to be seen, only a great archway lined with pillars that led into the mountains beyond.
“Look at the bones,” Halfdan whispered as they moved forward.
They stopped short. Broken bones littered the ground in front of them. Rusted weapons were scattered among the bones along with fragments of armor, the metal torn apart like paper.
“Come on,” Bregnest said in a firm tone. “Do not speak unless you must. We don’t want to give the guardian any reason to attack us.”
Slowly they started forward once more, moving toward the mountainous gate and the guardian that waited for them. As they drew closer, there were fewer bones to be seen, but that did little to comfort them. They walked close together, watching for any sudden movement that might be an attack.
Climbing a wide set of stairs, they came to a flat, open space, and at the top of the stairs was the guardian. Sitting in the center of the archway, partly covered by shadows, a huge catlike creature watched them with huge, unblinking eyes.
As they moved slowly toward the shadows, the guardian moved forward toward them. To Alex it looked like a lion had grown more than twice its normal size, but where the lion’s head should have been, there was a woman’s face.
The sphinx made no sound as it moved forward, and its eyes followed every move that Alex and his friends made. When they reached a point that only the sphinx seemed to know, the sphinx sat down and began to speak.
“If you wish to pass this way, you must answer what I ask,” the sphinx said sweetly.
“May we answer as a group, or must we go one at a time?” Bregnest questioned.
“Either,” the sphinx answered. “Though if you wish to answer as a group, I will choose the one to speak. And if you wish to answer alone, I will choose the order.”
“And if we can’t answer what you ask?” Bregnest questioned.
“I will ask, and you must answer or withdraw.”
“And if we answer wrong?” Bregnest persisted.
“If you answer wrong, you will neither go forward or back,” said the sphinx, nodding to the bones scattered around the steps.
“Can you tell us if another passed this way?” Bregnest asked.
The sphinx did not answer but turned its head slightly to one side and continued to watch them.
“Will you answer our questions if we answer your riddle?” Bregnest tried again.
The sphinx remained silent.
After a moment, Bregnest turned to the company. “Together, or one at a time?”
“We should go together,” said Halfdan instantly. “We are a company and should not divide.”
“But if the one asked the question ca
n’t answer it, none of us may pass,” Val said in a worried tone.
“And if the person gives the wrong answer, we will all be in trouble,” Andy added.
“Some of us must get past or we will never find the Horn,” said Sindar. “The others can wait here, or take their time to answer.”
“Together,” Alex said firmly, his eyes fixed on the sphinx. “We should go together or not at all.”
“I agree,” said Bregnest and turned back to face the sphinx. “We will pass together. To which member of our company will you ask your question?”
The sphinx looked at each of them in turn, as if considering who to ask its riddle to. For several minutes the sphinx said nothing, and they were all starting to worry.
“The young wizard,” the sphinx finally said. “He will answer the question for you all.”
Alex was afraid this would happen. He had never been good with riddles, and he often guessed them wrong. Now his friends were depending on him to get the right answer so they could move on. Of course, if he couldn’t answer, they could still withdraw, but that wouldn’t help them find the Horn. If he answered incorrectly, however, they would be in trouble, and he wasn’t sure how much use his magic would be if they had to fight the sphinx.
Alex tried to remember what Whalen had told him in his letter: Don’t overthink the riddle. Look for a simple answer.
“Are you ready?” asked the sphinx, as Alex stepped forward.
“I am.”
“Unseen but heard, untouched but felt. Relief from the sun, a breath and I’m done. Never staying, always going, gently moving, never blowing. What am I?” the sphinx questioned.
Alex stood looking at the sphinx in wonder. He had no idea what the answer was. “Could you repeat that, please?”
The sphinx smiled at Alex and repeated the riddle. Alex listened carefully to every word. He felt like he should know the answer. It had to be something simple—something so simple that nobody would ever think of it.
“One more time, please?”
As Alex listened to the sphinx repeat the riddle the third time, he felt a cold breeze blow across his face. He wouldn’t have noticed the breeze normally, except the answer suddenly came to him.
“You are a gentle breeze on a warm day,” said Alex.
“I am,” replied the sphinx, bowing slightly and stepping aside so the company could pass.
Once they had all passed the sphinx, Bregnest turned to see if the sphinx would answer his questions about the prince and his party.
“Others have passed this way, but none have returned,” the sphinx answered and then lay down in the middle of the archway, ignoring them completely.
“Well done, Alex,” said Halfdan, slapping him on the back. “I’d have never thought of that.”
“I was lucky,” Alex admitted.
“So you always say, though I think there is more to it than that,” said Bregnest.
The others were all relieved that Alex had managed to answer the sphinx. Alex, however, wasn’t sure if he was happy or not. The puzzle of how he might destroy the lower library had returned to his mind again, and he really had no idea how he could do it.
“We still have a long march ahead of us,” Sindar commented.
Looking at the path ahead of them, Alex could see that it would be both long and difficult. The path from the first gate started climbing the Mountains of the Moon, winding up the mountainside like some monstrous snake, vanishing from sight high above them.
“It looks narrow in spots,” Sindar continued. “Almost too narrow.”
“Let’s get moving,” said Bregnest. “We don’t know how far it is to the second gate, and time is running out.”
The company began walking once more. The road was fairly wide at the bottom of the mountains, but it became more and more narrow the farther they went. Before long, Alex and his friends were forced to walk in a single file, bent with the effort of climbing. In places they had to use their hands as well as their feet to scramble up the mountainside. Now and then one of them would slip a few feet back down the path before catching themselves.
As darkness was gathering around them, they came to a wide spot that opened suddenly on the side of the mountain. Bregnest signaled them to stop, but it was several minutes before he had breath enough to speak.
“A hard road,” Bregnest finally managed to say, still breathing heavily.
None of the others spoke for some time, winded and exhausted. Alex noticed that the air felt much colder here on the mountain, colder even than it had been on the frozen waste.
“I would not want to be on this road when the snows come,” Halfdan commented.
“This path would be impossible in winter,” said Val. “I only hope we are well off it before the snows arrive.”
“If we have not found the Horn or reached the tower within seven days, we will go back,” said Bregnest in a bitter tone. “We must find the Horn and return it to Alusia, even if we are too late to prevent a war. And if we are caught on this path when winter comes, we may never return at all.”
“Going back would mean passing the sphinx again,” said Andy, sounding worried. “Next time it may not ask Alex to answer the riddle.”
“We have not reached that point yet,” said Bregnest. “We still have seven days before we must consider our options.”
“And if we must go back, at least we’ll have a long winter to prepare,” Halfdan added.
Alex didn’t comment. He conjured a cooking fire for Halfdan and sat thinking. His thoughts were not on going back or the coming winter, but on the second gate and the tower that lay beyond. He thought they would reach the second gate at least, but he didn’t know if they would pass the guardians that waited at it. They needed to stop a war, or at the very least, make it a short war. And if they managed to reach the tower, he would have to try to destroy the lower library. A shiver ran through him at the thought.
Alex put out his magical fire when Halfdan had finished cooking, and they had eaten in the gathering darkness without speaking. Now they were lying half awake, uncomfortable and unable to sleep, wondering how far they had to go and how hard the trail would be before they reached the second gate.
“You seem troubled, my friend,” said Sindar as he sat in the darkness beside Alex.
“Thinking too much again,” Alex said softly.
“Ah, the problem of the library. I will admit, it is a difficult problem.”
“There must be a way or Whalen wouldn’t have suggested that I destroy it.”
“To destroy is always easier than to create,” Sindar replied softly. “Though to destroy completely and forever . . . I do not know if that is possible.”
“How far away do you think the second gate is?” Alex asked.
“A day, maybe two. If it is much farther than that we will be going down the other side of this mountain.”
A day or two to reach the second gate, and then they would have to face the griffin guards that could read a man’s heart. Alex felt tired, but sleep would not come. He sat in the darkness, trying to clear his mind, but his thoughts continued to press in on him. Whalen had told him to look for simple solutions, but he couldn’t think of anything simple that would work.
When morning finally came, Alex’s body felt rested, but his mind was tired from all of his thinking. He was glad when they started climbing again because the hard work forced him to focus on nothing but the path in front of him.
If anything, the climb was harder than it had been the day before. They ate their midday meal at one of the few places they found where the path was wide and almost level, and then they rested for about an hour before continuing.
Late in the afternoon, just as Alex thought he couldn’t take another step without resting, the trail leveled out once more. There was rock on both sides of the path, and it was far easier to move forward. They continued for a short distance and came to an open space that looked like a crater. A cold wind was blowing, but there was no sign of the seco
nd gate.
“We seem to have reached the top,” said Bregnest after a few minute’s rest. “Perhaps tomorrow’s road will be less steep, and we will make better time.”
“And perhaps the path will start down again and this is only the first mountain we will have to climb,” said Val, sounding depressed.
“I do not think so,” Halfdan commented. “If the builders of this road wished us to climb a different mountain, there are easier ways to lead us to it.”
“It is likely that the builders of this road wished it to be hard,” said Sindar.
“Why?” Andy asked. “I imagine they had to use the road as well, didn’t they?”
“I do not know,” Sindar answered. “But it seems they had some purpose in mind when they built it. I would guess to keep away unwanted visitors.”
After resting for several minutes, Alex conjured a cooking fire for Halfdan. His mind felt clearer here with the cold wind blowing his hair, and his thoughts about the lower library did not trouble him as much as they had.
For the convenience of his friends, Alex conjured several small balls of light, which he sent floating around the cooking fire. His friends were all impressed by this feat of magic and watched the balls with great interest.
“Your abilities have grown since the last time we traveled together,” said Bregnest.
“They have,” Alex agreed.
“It is most impressive,” commented Sindar. “I have not seen this done before.”
Alex sat watching the balls of light, his mind far more relaxed than it had been for several days. Once Halfdan had finished cooking, Alex put out the blue-flamed cooking fire, but left the balls floating around the company.
“There is no heat or flame in them,” Andy observed.
“No,” said Alex. “They are called weir lights.”
“How long will they last?” Val questioned.
“As long as I want,” said Alex. “I’ve read that if you catch one in a jar, you can keep it forever. If the jar breaks, however, the light will try to escape.”
“Perhaps we should all get jars,” Halfdan suggested. “A light that doesn’t go out could be a useful tool.”
