by Candy Rae
“Book? What book?” Aranel asked herself.
‘Kirstvan will know how. Bring her here. She has the second tarna in her possession. There is an evil in this land of ours Aranel, and this evil is searching for all the jewels. Perhaps the one leading the evilness has already got his hands on the other three; at least two are in his possession that, I know. You have the blue and you must lead the search for the others.’
“This will need a lot of thinking about,” Aranel said aloud. “I wonder what he means, and who is this Kirstvan?”
Surely it was not her little stepsister? She was very young, too young to know anything about this or to attempt to help Aranel decipher it. And Khirstvain was probably dead, burned to death along with little Chlaricvia and her stepmother at Tanquelameir. She frowned. The spelling was wrong too. It must be another elf. She continued to read.
‘The first is, of course, here, if you are reading this it is on your finger; the second will come, through the mist and called by the Tathar, using your ring as a beacon; the third you must fetch. I know where the second tarna trio are and I believe I know the location of the third. The book will tell you if it is correctly interpreted. I set the clues in the book. They are obscure, but I have had to make them so. The book must not fall into the evil one’s hands. Destroy it rather than let that happen.
Once upon a place and a time.
Kirstvan. Claricvan.
‘Groups of three. Attuned to each other they are.
Four ando. Four gates. Eileach an Naoimh. Seanar na Stainge. Candida Casa. Ceann Mor de tur. Holy Islands. The enemy, for that is what I shall call the one who hunts them, knows about at least one, if not two of the gates, so take care. Danger may lurk on the other side.’
“And no dangers lurk here?” she said aloud, half-laughing, half-crying.
‘Find the Tathar. He must call in the red.
Be brave. Be careful. Be steadfast. Be loyal.’
* * * * *
CHAPTER 13
‘And it shall come to pass, that the day shall arrive when the Tathar shall diminish and the magic of the T’Quel fail. Then must the ten unite from whence they bide and renew the circle. The call shall go out. Warrior shall travel. Warrior shall gather. Warrior shall lead. Through the mist shall come the second.’
(Saga of Enduin)
KIRSTY AND ARANEL
“It could take hours, even days,” Bob warned. “Time goes by at the same rate here as at home. Lord Arovan might take some time to get to the T’Quel.”
Kirsty turned a surprised face in Bob’s direction. “I’m going to meet my father?” she cried.
“Whom else would you be going to see?” he asked. “Now, we’ll wait a while to see if what you have done has alerted the other side, then if nothing happens I think we’ll do as Boudica says and leave her here to guard while you and I make some preparations.”
“Preparations?” asked a suspicious Kirsty. “Preparations for what?”
“More in the line of me talking and you listening,” he said. “There’s much you have to learn about where you are going.”
“How long will it take?”
“How long is a piece of string?”
Kirsty smiled. “Stupid question, wasn’t it?”
Bob nodded. “Come Kirsty. Boudica, we’ll be back in a bit with food and water. You’ll be all right?”
She nodded. “I wait over there, under that hedge. If the gate begins to form and the mist seeps through I’ll come and get you.”
“What happens if it closes before I can get back?” asked Kirsty.
“It doesn’t work like that,” Bob explained. “It takes a while. There’ll be plenty of time.”
Reluctantly, Kirsty followed Bob back to the village. Boudica settled herself under the hedge and prepared for what she was mentally calling ‘the long wait’.
* * * * *
It was late afternoon. Bob and Kirsty had gone back twice to check and to take Boudica some food and had not long returned to the timeshare flat.
Kirsty was enjoying some chicken soup when her ring began to sparkle again.
“Bob!” she cried. “Look!”
He looked up from his chair where he was reading Lord Arovan’s book and taking notes in a little black notebook he had bought from the village store when he had dropped in to get some more supplies.
“Is it tugging at you?” he asked.
“No, not yet.”
“Then we have time to prepare.”
“But what does it mean?”
“I told you. The ruby in your ring is magically linked to the sapphire back in Alfheimr?”
She nodded. “Although if you had asked me that a few days ago I would have told you, most emphatically, that you were going off your rocker.”
“They are – how shall I put it? They are ‘talking’ to each other. I think Lord Arovan is getting close to the T’Quel. We should return to Boudica so that we are ready and waiting the moment he gets there.”
“You are coming with us?” asked Kirsty, pleased. Then she had a thought. “But, but, what about Mum? Wouldn’t it be best if you stayed here and tried to locate her?”
“I’ve thought about that, believe me Kirsty, but I don’t know where to start and I am only one. I also believe that the best chance of finding her is back in Alfheimr.”
“You think these Morityaro people took her through the gate at Dunfermline?”
“I believe it is the most likely option,” he answered.
“This T’Quel must be a busy place, people and elves coming and going the whole time.”
Bob laughed.
“The T’Quel isn’t a place exactly.”
“Then what is it?”
“A boundary between the two worlds. Its main focus point is in Alfheimr, yes, in a valley cleft to the north of the Five Kingdoms. The elves call that the T’Quel.”
“But there are gates too, right?”
“I used to think, as did your father, that the gates existed only here, on Earth. The last time I saw him however, Lord Arovan told me that he thought he had found evidence of the existence of two in our world. He didn’t know where they were but he intended to try to find out.”
“I don’t really understand much of this,” Kirsty complained.
“It will, as I told you before, become more clear with time, or as clear as it is going to be. Your father will explain when we get there. Until then, trust your instincts. Now, we should only take a small pack each, with food and other necessities.”
“I don’t have much here apart from necessities. Do I take the book and the dagger?”
“Are they not necessities?”
“I suppose so,” she answered and went off to the bedroom to get her rucksack.
“How do you move through this T’Quel?” she asked a few minutes later as she added packets of rapidly prepared sandwiches to her pack then squeezed in some plastic bottles of water. “I mean, you don’t have a ring.”
“That’s easy,” he answered, fastening the buckles of his own pack. Kirsty noticed that it was significantly larger than her own. “I hold on to you and will be brought through with you.”
“Boudica?”
“I’ll carry her,” he said.
“I’ll tell her not to wriggle,” promised Kirsty.
“That,” smiled Bob, who knew what the dog was like when she was lifted, “would be appreciated. Shall we go?”
He gestured towards the door and with a last look round, Kirsty led the way outside.
* * * * *
Boudica was sitting under the hedge. She looked surprised to see them and even more surprised to see that they were dressed in warm clothing and both had backpacks on their shoulders.
“What’s up? Is it time to go?” she asked, getting up from under the foliage and stretching one leg at a time.
“Kirsty’s ring has begun to sparkle,” Bob explained. “No vibrating yet but it shouldn’t be long.”
Boudica’s eyes brightened.
>
“At last,” she sighed, “we can go home.” She wagged her tail. “I’ll just go get some water.” She trotted off in the direction of one of the mountain streams. It wasn’t far away and Kirsty could hear her lapping up the clear, spring water.
“So what do we do now?”
“Wait,” answered Bob who also looked excited.
He’s looking forward to going home, thought Kirsty, whereas me, I’m leaving my home and everything I know, everything that is normal. Boudica feels the same as Bob.
Kirsty was scared, scared about what was ahead of her and about entering a world inhabited by thousands of elves, dragons and any number of other creatures, which, until a few days ago, she didn’t think existed. As a point of fact, a few days ago she had known, without a shadow of a doubt, that they didn’t.
Admit it girl, she thought, you’re terrified.
“Try to stay calm,” advised Bob noticing that Kirsty was biting her lip, a sure sign, for one who had known her since she was a little girl, that she was nervous. She had looked exactly the same when she had stood at the edge of the swimming pool when he had been teaching her how to dive. “Focus on what is important; getting to Alfheimr and finding your mother.”
“I’m trying,” said Kirsty, trying not to tremble. She wasn’t succeeding too well she realised when she looked at her hand, the one wearing the ring. It was continuing to sparkle. The hand itself was shaking, in fact, both her hands were shaking and she was no longer sure if the ring was causing it or if it was her nerves taking over. A bit of both she decided.
She looked at Bob, biting her lip. Now that the moment was almost upon her she wanted to get it over with.
“How long is it going to be?”
He shrugged. “It will take as long as it takes. There is no way of knowing. The secrets of the T’Quel are not an exact science.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
Boudica came up and sat between them. She couldn’t seem able to stop her tail from wagging. It was strange thought Kirsty that, although Boudica could think intelligently, had opinions and could talk, she still exhibited what her mother called ‘doggy traits’ such as wagging her tail and sniffing at interesting smells.
“Let’s sit down over there,” said Bob, pointing to an overgrown tree trunk.
“It must have been a big tree once,” Kirsty commented, after brushing away the moss and taking her seat.
Bob didn’t answer. He had suddenly stiffened, as if he had heard something that he hadn’t been expecting.
“Did you hear that?” he asked in a tight voice.
“I heard nothing,” Kirsty answered, putting her hand into her pocket and bringing out a boiled sweet.
“I did,” whined Boudica. She was standing with her ears cocked and her tail erect, her hackles beginning to rise all along her back.
Kirsty, who hadn’t noticed and was therefore quite unconcerned, had just unwrapped her sweet and was in the act of putting it into her mouth when her ring began to vibrate. It tugged at her hand in the direction of where they believed the gate to be.
Surprised, she dropped the sweet and was turning to tell Bob when he suddenly stood up, pulling a long, sharp knife from his inside jacket pocket. Kirsty blinked. In Bob’s other hand was another weapon, a poniard, which looked to Kirsty’s untutored eyes to be very sharp and dangerous.
Boudica was growling and crawling downhill, towards a hedge-bounded lane Kirsty had noticed earlier, noticed, but hadn’t paid much attention to.
Kirsty looked at the hedge, saw nothing then looked at her ring again. It was sparkling, she could feel it vibrating and the movement was getting more marked, more intense. She felt as if her finger was going to break.
“Uncle Bob!” she cried out in alarm.
Boudica, with a snarl and a bark, had begun running as fast as her paws could go, towards the lane.
With a curse, Bob hurried after her, his long legs eating up the distance.
Kirsty stood stock-still. Where was he going? Then she saw a dark shape on the other side of the hedge. A Morityaro agent! It had to be one of them! It had happened so fast. She didn’t know what to do. She was just wondering if she should fish for the dagger in her own bag and go and help when the ring tugged again. She staggered and turned to look to the place where the stone circle had stood before weather, time and the need to clear arable land for ploughing had made their mark.
A mist was forming, a mist with tinges of purple. Kirsty felt herself, almost against her will, walking towards it. She heard Bob’s voice shouting and the sound of metal clashing against metal. She whirled. Down by the hedge Bob was fighting with a black-garbed, hooded stranger. Boudica was there to. She was snarling and appeared to be holding on to the stranger’s ankle.
Then she heard a yelp and saw Boudica flying through the air. She landed on the ground where she lay still.
The two who were fighting didn’t pay her any notice. They were in the middle of, as Kirsty could see, a ferocious fight. She saw the glint of the knife blades as the two whirled and danced.
She looked back at the mist; it was thicker now. She hesitated. She looked at Boudica’s inert body and decided. She began to run towards her.
Bob glanced over.
“Kirsty,” he yelled. “No! Get back to the gate. Go through!”
The hooded shape lunged and Bob skipped aside, then with his right arm raised and his left held low, drove the point of his weapon into his enemy’s body. The black shape crumpled with a gasp and a loud gurgle of blood.
“Go,” Bob called again.
“I’m coming to help,” she cried and began to run towards them again.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw something else moving. To her dismay she saw that it was another hooded black shape. Another of the Morityaro she assumed, like the first one and of the same ilk that had kidnapped her mother.
The ring tugged again.
“Watch out!” she cried out, pointing at the new enemy.
Bob kicked at his late opponent and looked over to where Kirsty was pointing. He hesitated, wavered for a moment then leapt over and picked up the prone Boudica and began running towards her. Kirsty turned and ran back towards the gate. She felt sure that long-legged Bob would catch her up.
She was stumbling, crying, trying to keep her legs moving. She felt the first mist-tendrils gather round her, felt Bob’s breath on her cheek, felt his hand on her shoulder; and then it was if his hand had been wrenched away. His presence disappeared.
She began to panic then, big-time. She was on her own, in the middle of the rapidly thickening mist that was beginning to eddy. She could feel it thrumming against her body. She stopped moving of her own volition and the mist gusted and swept her off her feet. She couldn’t breathe. She was choking. The mist tasted terrible, like old socks. Bob hadn’t told her it would taste like this.
She was going to die here. She just knew it, she was as sure of this as she was that the sun rose every morning.
She was falling, and her fall seemed to be going on forever.
She began to flail with her hands. This wasn’t right. Bob hadn’t said that the T’Quel was going to kill her. Where had Bob gone? Where was her father? Bob had promised he would be there to bring her through.
She felt the telltale signs of unconsciousness as her eyes closed and shook herself awake, forcing her eyes to open again.
If this was death then she was going to meet it head on, not meekly letting it happen, blind as a bat in the fog.
Suddenly, and to her bemused amazement, a shape emerged in front of her and hands, strong and calloused, came out to grasp hers. The hands drew Kirsty deeper into the mist. She tried to resist, but couldn’t. She felt her body drift and it was like she was flying through soup.
It seemed like an eternity until the mist started to thin. The shape attached to the hands continued to pull at her.
Kirsty let them. Anything was preferable to suffocating to death.
At las
t the mist cleared and Kirsty found she was standing on her own two feet once more. The hands disengaged themselves and Kirsty got a good look at her rescuer.
“Who are you?” stuttered the amazed Kirsty confronted by a stern-faced elf girl with an assortment of evil-looking knives attached to her belt.
“My name is Aranel,” the elf girl answered. “Who are you?”
“Kirsty Douglas, and I want to know what you’re doing here. Where is my father?”
“I might say the same about you,” retorted Aranel right back. If she had been expecting anyone or anything it certainly hadn’t been a small, thin, dishevelled girl wearing strange garments and who looked as white as a ghost.
“Where is my father?” repeated Kirsty, glaring at Aranel.
