Hokra turned and smiled at Haustis, holding out his large hand for her to take and when she placed her hand in his, it was as if a baby had taken the hand of an adult, her hand barely wrapping around one of Hokra’s massive fingers. “These chambers are merely roughly hewn staging areas and show nothing of our craft. If Eigrae is indeed happy here, she will be delighted as we move down.”
There were several paths they could have taken from the large chamber at the top of the path, but Hokra took them along the paths where sunlight shone through the many windows carved in the stone looking into the valley outside. The hallways by these windows were wide and sloped gently downward until they reached a series of stairs, that would double back and send them walking the other way, back and forth until they were level with the ground outside. Opposite the windows, there was occasionally a large open space, but mostly flat walls and not a collection of doors and rooms Lydria and the others expected to see.
About halfway down the rockface, Lydria saw outside the window a natural stone arch that connected the two sides of the city just a single set of stairs further along their way. The bridge was several times wider than Lydria was tall and the rock supporting the center of the bridge was similarly thick.
“We are not creatures of sunlight, though many of our youngsters are much more adapted to the sun than our elders.” Hokra smiled, causing Lydria to guess that he was considered a relative youngster in their society. “Any of us can be in the light, and most of us find it refreshing to do so from time to time, hence these hallways. But we are more comfortable in the darkness underground.” He turned to Lydria, “can your people see without the sun?”
“We cannot, however, let us press forward and see how far we may go.” Lydria looked to Haustis who immediately came to her side, understanding that her friend would be attempting some new magic that may require her assistance. Having used Kimi’s eyes in the past, Lydria was aware the cat saw things differently than humans, and that his vision at night was much better than her own, and so she silently thought about how the world looked through Kimi’s eyes.
Hokra did not miss the faint blue glow of her collar or the gasps of Relin and Pars as they turned a corner into a hallway without windows. “That is an interesting necklace? What is it made of?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but I cannot remove it.”
“Does it always glow in that way? I did not notice it doing so outside.” Hokra’s eyes were then drawn to the faint golden glow coming from below Haustis’ neck and immediately stepped back and lifted his hands, his men who followed the company, raising their short swords as well.
“Fear not, friend Hokra, I merely have used my magic to help my friends see in this place,” and turning to the others Hokra lurched at them and was surprised to see them move back from his advance.
“And this light?” Hokra pointed to Haustis. “Surely she does not possess a candle in her tunic.”
“Again, magic that has been burning for some time and poses no threat to you, but a considerable danger to Haustis should it go out.”
The stout warrior looked at his four guests in turn and then to his men he raised his chin and they moved forward once again. Hokra’s pace increased and he turned corners quickly as if trying to elude his guests, but each time, Lydria and the others saw him as a grey shape against a darker background and followed him with ease as they grew more accustomed to their new sight.
As much as they had traveled down from the top of the valley to the river floor below, they traveled again underneath the ground, sinking ever lower into halls that became more ornate. Through it all Lydria noticed only that the Chag Ca’Grae had virtually no use for color, and if her vision mimicked theirs at all, she could see why. The Chags were effectively color blind, and even the light from Haustis’ tunic, was no more than a lighter shade of grey although its light highlighted her face so that Lydria could make out every line and hair and bead of sweat.
There were no paintings on the walls, but the Chags did carve magnificent reliefs into hallways and on columns, and even door frames. Everything was made of stone, and their art used this material to its fullest extent. As they continued down, tables appeared in the expansive walkways, and the floors were tiled or carved, it was difficult to discern which. On the tables, were ornate and delicate items made from stone and steel and other metals that Lydria couldn’t identify in the hazy grey. Hokra made it a point to stop at some of these displays and let Lydria and the others look at the works. He was justifiably proud of his peoples’ skill.
“Despite the generations that have passed since we arrived to begin carving these halls, the only thing that some feel we lack is the sense of home. Some elders would risk our peace to regain our old home if they believed they would be successful,” Hokra said tensely under his breath. “No matter, we are here.” He walked around a final corner that opened on to what could easily be called an avenue more than a hallway. Ten humans could easily stand side by side and walk freely down the hall, and it was more heavily decorated than any other area they had seen. Every inch of wall, ceiling, and floor was carved; tables and shelves lined the walls, with a dizzying variety of stone and metal objects so delicate Lydria thought they were carved of bone. Halfway down the hall guards stood at attention on either side and when Lydria passed, she gave them long, staring glances, wanting them to understand she could see them. Unlike the soldiers above, these did not hide or try to conceal themselves. They wore traditionally muted colors but may as well have been in bright red so easily they stood out in the hall.
At the end of the walk, two enormous doors stood open. Each was made of stone and more than a hands length thick. The room inside was lit as if from a night sky in the form of small glowing designs that graced the cavern from floor to ceiling, like a vein of silver laid out in a pattern of stars above and to the sides. Lydria thought that she might be on top of Dragaven in the middle of the night, so much did it look like the sky draped around them on all sides.
In the center of the chamber, flanked by impressively sized guards was the king of the Chag Ca’Grae, he could be no other as Hokra and the others bowed politely, and seeing this, Lydria led the others in a similar expression of respect.
“Lord Graenel, I bring four travelers who were taken while crossing our territory. They are three from the east and one of the Eifen of the West.” Hokra introduced Lydria by name as a wielder and pointed out her curious collar. Haustis, too, he presented as the dim glow from her chest glowed like a bonfire in the darkness of the cavern. Rather than immediately calling the women forward to speak as she thought he would, Graenel called Relin to stand close by him and together they spoke quietly for long minutes.
Lydria moved her eyes and then, slowly, her head and body to take in the great hall. The guards were the only Chag Ca’Grae she had seen who had hair on their heads. It was curly and long like a crown of hair. Like the others, the guards had short beards, pointed and sleek even in the darkness. They held long handled weapons with flat, axe-like blades on the end, and thorn-like blades along the top half of the shaft. Like their king, the guards were dressed in what appeared to be a thin, scale armor.
The hall was not empty as was the throne room of Bayside. It was furnished with small tables, chairs and stone benches and Lydria could see cups and plates on some of the closer tables. All of this, however, was set behind the king’s throne, which itself was much grander than the one upon which Edgar sat. The back of the chair was taller than Lydria and draped across it were the skins of animals she recognized and some she had never seen before. In the gaps between these skins, she could see the chair seemed to be made from the same material as the hall itself, with an intermittent twinkling of silvery light that always seemed to lie just beyond her normal sight. As she moved her head, she felt she could see the light from the corner of her eye, but never while looking at the chair directly.
Finally, with a loud laugh and kindly slap on the back, Graenel dismissed Relin, stood and opene
d his arms to Lydria and the others. “Welcome to Safarngal. I understand you are in haste to rescue your friends, and I would help you. But first, I must speak with the wielder. Hokra, find refreshments for our guests and be sure they are provisioned and then join me in my chambers.
An hour later, Hokra entered the brightly lit chamber of Graenel, where a fire so small it could be held in a hand, lit the pitch-dark room like a small sun, and Graenel was laughing to himself so that his ample stomach lurched toward his chest. His lower eyelids were half closed in the light, but he looked up to Hokra and smiled wider than before, his thick fingers spread wide as he opened his arms and called out, “Come in, and see this thing called magic.”
Closing the door smoothly behind him, Hokra smiled and looked at Lydria. “I have seen this thing sire, and the wielder has been very forthright with both her ability and her intentions. I feel you are correct in naming them our friends.”
“Sit. Sit.” Graenel looked about for chairs, and with a thought Lydria moved three from their positions around a nearby table to their sides and Graenel laughed out loud again. “I’m sorry, wielder, I just find the whole thing so wonderful and terrifying. I find it best to focus on the wonderful, lest the terrifying impede my ability to speak.”
Taking their seats, Lydria expected they would want to immediately talk about the Qorghal, so she brought out her stone sphere before Graenel could catch his breath. As the stone lay in her hands, she explained to them how she had found it, and how after she had touched it, the collar had formed around her neck. The beauty of Safarngal, she had decided, meant that there existed within the Chag Ca’Grae the desire to create – even as they held within their hearts the desire to destroy their enemies.
“Lord Graenel, I would offer you the opportunity to touch the stone, if you would like. I cannot guarantee you will see what I saw, or that you will receive a collar of magic, for not all do. But I believe your people would use this power wisely.” Lydria held out her hand to the king and he stared at her with both eyelids wide open for a moment, the meager light of the small fire, causing them to tear up as if he were staring at the sun, and quickly closed them again, so his brown pupils looked at her through two narrow channels. The stout king opened his mouth, whether to accept or decline, Lydria couldn’t tell, and he raised his hand over the stone, his thumb and index finger reaching for the blue-black sphere but stopping inches from the stone which was no larger than the pad of his thumb. His fingers twitched almost imperceptibly once before he pulled his hand back.
“Thank you, wielder.” Graenel gave an enormous sigh that caused the small fire to waver before Lydria extinguished its light. He shuddered once and cleared his throat, his deep voice, cracking slightly as he looked toward his guest once more. “I appreciate your offer, but I do not think it is wise for an old king such as myself to wield such a gift. If, as you have told me, the price for using it would be so high, my people would not want me to use this power and become ill or incapacitated; while at the same time wanting me to use it so that through me, they might become more powerful. No, it is best that this gift not be offered to me. Perhaps, if it please you, you might honor the prince of Safarngal with this gift?”
“I would be honored to do so if the prince shows the wisdom of his father.” Lydria was genuinely moved by Graenel’s refusal. If nothing else, she had not been wrong to make the offer to him. “When might I meet the Prince of Safarngal?”
Graenel’s eyes widened again, happiness evident in his expression. “Why, you already have – did Hokra not tell you that he is my son? Such modesty, Hokra!”
Lydria wasn’t sure that the Chag Ca’Grae were capable of blushing, as colors beyond grey and brown seemed entirely foreign to them, but if so, she was sure Hokra was blushing now. Lifting her hand to the young prince, she asked again if he would be willing to try and touch the stone. Hokra stared at the sphere for several long breaths before moving his hand. “Father,” he said at last. “Do you wish that I should do this?”
Graenel smiled warmly in the darkness. “Hokra, I understand your heart and your love for Safarngal. I do not deny it. Do not let the desires and animosities of your ancestors rule you. One day, you will rule the Chag Ca’Grae, and you must know your own mind and keep your own counsel. The halls of our forefathers have been long lost to us, and still we thrive. Perhaps it is time we look to our valley and stop looking toward the past.”
Lydria lowered her hand and sat quietly while the conversation between father and son played out. When Hokra had thanked his father and the two had stood and clasped forearms and retaken their seats, the king spoke to Lydria.
“Safarngal, as beautiful as it is, is not the ancestral home of the Chag Ca’Grae. In fact, we were not always so named. Generations ago, we were known as the Eichag. Chag Ca’Grae, in your language, roughly means Chag without a home.”
Lydria spoke slowly, wanting to make sure she was understood, and told the king and his son of the Eifen, and how her friends, had moved east in search of an ore called Farn’Nethyn, but had found only a very small amount east of the lake, though they searched for generations.
“Ah, even had they found it, there are no longer any who can shape the ore,” Graenel said. “Our people can dig with our bare hands,” and to illustrate he reached to the wall of the room and slowly pushed his fingers into the rock and squeezed. Lydria could see that while the motion was not without effort, it seemed painless, almost joyful to the king. As the stone cracked and popped, his fingers came together until he had pulled out a chunk of the wall, which he casually crushed in his palm as one would crush a nut, allowing the resulting dirt to fall to the floor in a small cloud of dust. He smiled when he looked back to her and Hokra smiled as well. “I haven’t done that in a long time – it feels wonderful. But, alas, not as wonderful as the feeling of Farn’Nethyn.”
“Have you never seen Farn’Nethyn then?”
Hokra laughed a little, but Graenel did not. “Only very little and that is raw and impure. The Qorghal took our halls generations ago, and it is said there were pure veins of the stone deep under those halls. There is a very old story, that at the center of the old city, underneath the very center of the city, there sits a treasure which was taken from our enemies long ago. The treasure is said by some to be more valuable than Farn’Nethyn, though I do not put much stock in such a tale, as the ore itself is almost beyond value”
There was a quiet silence while Lydria considered whether these halls were metaphorical or literal in their description. “What do you remember of the Farn’Nethyn?” Lydria didn’t hope for much of a response, but she needed time to think.
“We know of the stone only by the small amount we keep in our treasury. None here remembers mining the ore, and none have seen it naked in the ground,” explained Graenel. “But the old stories and in the scrolls, it tells of a time when we mined the stone with gladness and were made wealthy by its sale to parties of the west who it is said made marvelous items from the darkness. With this wealth, we built the City of Nethyngal on top of the small veins of ore. We grew wealthy and even reached out to the world beyond our borders. As we prospered, some of our people moved on and created the place you stand in today, looking for more of the dark stone, but finding only base metals and gems - all valuable in their way but set aside as worthless curiosities as we searched for Farn’Nethyn. We moved to build this place too soon, for when the Qorghal arrived in Nethyngal there were not enough of us to defend it. Some escaped and wrote their accounts of the destruction of Nethyngal. Their stories tell of flooded halls and collapsed tunnels, carvings desecrated, and children mauled clutching their mothers’ hands. The Qorghal have no mercy. The Eichag were barely aware of their presence, thinking them many days march away living in the swamps by the great River Lang’Al, but they came upon the city unaware and in numbers so vast they couldn’t be stopped. They did only two things – they destroyed, and they killed.”
Even with the partial vision of greys, Lydria c
ould tell that both Graenel and his son were deeply moved, though the story seemed to be one they were both familiar with.
“Graenel, Hokra, know this: if you choose to wield, and if you are accepted by the stone, there is the possibility that magic can be negated by a large enough source of Farn’Nethyn.” Lydria told them of the dragons of Dragaven and their suspicion of how the stone would affect magic.
“Do you still wish to touch the stone, Hokra?” Lydria held it out once more, and this time, without hesitation, he closed his enormous hands over the tiny stone, and sat still, both eyelids open and his dark eyes starting unblinkingly at the hole in the wall his father had just made. It was nearly a minute later when he blinked and looked first at Graenel and then Lydria, and started to speak, but his words tumbled over each other and made no sense. Seconds later, a blue light lit the room and began to fade. As it dimmed, there shown a collar of blue encircling the neck of the young prince, and the stone which he had taken from Lydria, turned on his palm and reformed into a perfect sphere before she reached out to retake it.
“Graenel, I will watch over your son and teach him, and as a token of peace between the king of Wesolk and your people, I would like to present you a gift.” Lydria reached behind her and took out the knife Wae Ilsit had given to his son and with which she had removed the collar of Wynter. In the grey half-vision of the Chag Ca’Grae, the blade looked to be a black hole in front of her eyes. She could not discern the blade itself, merely the space where the blade should be. Turning the hilt to Graenel, she looked for his response.
“Is this….? My dear, what a gift. This is a Farn’Nethyn blade!” He stroked his fingers just above the dark outline, never contacting the blade. “There are stories of items such as this being crafted, but never, not even in the stories of my people, have any such items been used as payment for our services in mining the ore. Many kings of my people have requested such payment, and some threatened to stop mining the ore, but never has such payment been given. And now, you give this to us freely?” The king moved to sit beside his son and together they cradled the knife, which looked tiny in their hands, and they held it with a reverence Lydria had only seen before when witnessing mothers hold their newborn children.
Magic's Genesis- Sword of Wilmamen Page 7
