The Return of the Fifth Stone

by Vincent Todarello

  I dove down and swam with all my energy back toward the falls, against the current. I moved through the water with ease despite the flow running against me. I found that the river was easier to maneuver as I went deeper toward the riverbed.

  I approached Lunaris with caution. Her body was limp and injured. Her leg was cut deeply and her head was bleeding. Thin ribbons of crimson hung suspended in the water around her, undisturbed in the deep calm below the falls like smoke frozen in air. I pulled her up and placed her over my shoulder, bracing her head with my hand and keeping it out of the water as I surfaced and swam back with the current. I quickly approached the others at the riverside and carried Lunaris to the shore. She was not breathing. I gently placed her on the ground face up. Her body was heavy and lifeless.

  Patreus put an ear to her chest. “I don’t hear her heart,” he whimpered.

  Fiama cried loudly and fell to her knees. I tried to comfort her despite my own tears of grief. Lunaris was dead. Patreus held his head in his hands and wept. He and Fiama knelt beside her body and pressed their fists to their heads and began to move their mouths as if silently speaking to someone.

  “She’s dead because of you!” Deius erupted with anger and sadness. “You killed her!” He pointed at me.

  In an instant he lunged, charging with fuming rage, and tackling me to the ground. He got on top of me and began to punch me. I closed my eyes and covered myself like a turtle crawling into its shell for protection. I took the blows in sadness, having felt responsible for everything, her death, the entire journey. After a moment I felt a weight lift off me, and my wounds were cooled by the crisp morning air as Peitus wrestled Deius away.

  “It’s not his fault,” I heard Patreus say with sternness. “It’s nobody’s fault. You can blame nobody for this.” Patreus cried as he stood and turned toward our scuffle. “It’s my fault,” he whimpered. “I should have gone alone with Valdren,” he said after a moment. “I’ve endangered you all.”

  “No,” said Fiama. She consoled him and whispered reassurances in his ear.

  Peitus held Deius in a loosened bear hug. Deius was angry, but Peitus calmed him and they began to grieve together.

  I walked over to Lunaris and hugged her lifeless body, shedding tears of guilt. I felt so alone, even though surrounded by friends. I closed my eyes shut tight and thought of her running to me and throwing her arms around me in her kitchen the day after Patreus brought me out of the barn. I remembered it so clearly, and in my head it was happening again. I felt her embrace, her happiness.

  When I opened my eyes I still felt her. I heard a coughing sound and saw her arms around me; she held me tightly, returning my embrace. The others turned and saw us. No one could believe it. She was alive! I looked into her eyes, astonished; she was with us again! Patreus scooped her up into his arms and Fiama joined him.

  “My baby. Is it true?” Fiama asked in disbelief, her eyes wide with restrained and uneasy joy.

  Lunaris coughed again. “Is what true?”

  “She’s alive!” Patreus yelled up to the sky.

  Fiama laughed with tears, kissing Lunaris repeatedly on her head.

  “It’s a miracle,” Patreus announced the event. “Valdren, what happened?” he asked. “Did anyone see?”

  “He hugged her,” said Peitus.

  “Yes, I… I just hugged her. I thought of the day she and Deius ran to me when I awoke in your home,” I explained.

  “Yes, I dreamed of that just now. I dreamed of that evening,” Lunaris said as she wearily rose onto her feet. “What happened?” she asked, holding her head with confusion and surprise.

  “I thought you were dead, my dear,” said Patreus.

  “The last thing I remember is steering away from the whirlpool and trying to avoid the falls,” Lunaris said.

  “We went over the falls. The boat is destroyed. Valdren pulled you from the water. I thought you died.” Patreus stammered. “The cuts on your leg, and your head. Your heart had stopped, but, but you’re alive now!”

  “Let me dress your wounds,” said Fiama. “They were dire. At least they looked dire.” Bewilderment filled her face as she looked down to see little or no injury to Lunaris’ head and leg.

  “Perhaps my diagnosis was wrong. I thought her heart stopped. I didn’t hear anything,” uttered a stunned Patreus.

  “We all thought she was dead. All of us,” I said. “Perhaps the fall knocked her out. She was lying on the rocks when I found her,” I reasoned.

  “She was under the water for too long. She would have drowned even if her wounds were minor,” added Peitus.

  “Perhaps the powers of the Fifth Stone are descending upon Haaret once again. The prophecy nears fruition,” Patreus said. “Let us pray.”

  “Pray?” I pondered.

  “Yes. Let us be thankful for Lunaris’ life and ask that the prophecy is soon fulfilled,” he said.

  Patreus held a clenched fist to his forehead and knelt on the ground. Fiama followed and then Peitus. Lunaris, Deius and I looked at each other confused, but we followed along with them. Patreus began to speak.

  “Good king, please hear us. We thank you for protecting Lunaris, and we ask that you will continue to look after us on our journey. Bless Valdren for his heroism and courage in retrieving her from the falls, and may the prophecy soon be upon us.”

  After a moment or two of silence, he rose back to his feet, as did Fiama and the rest of us in turn. There was a serene peacefulness that followed Patreus’ words, as if they had been acknowledged. Although it seemed that he spoke to nobody, as the king was not here before us, the message seemed to be heard. I felt calm, and the others looked more relaxed as well. It was then that I understood what Patreus and Fiama did when they pressed their fists to their foreheads and moved their lips without speaking. They were speaking to the king.

  I soon began to shiver. The day grew windy and brisk as we stood on the bank, drenched with cold river water. All of our gear had gotten wet and washed to shore.

  “I’ll retrieve our packs,” I suggested.

  “Good idea," said Peitus. "I’ll build a fire to warm us and dry our gear and clothing.”

  I removed my clothing down to my undergarments and draped them over a low-hanging tree limb to dry near the fire Peitus was building. I waded back into the river to gather our packs, which had washed ashore on the far side. As the water rose to my neck I began to feel more warm and comfortable than on the land, wet, in the cold air.

  I swam swiftly to the western shore and picked up the other packs, but there was a tingling itch on my neck. I felt my skin; it was soft and sensitive to the touch, almost raw. Perhaps it was a scrape from the wood or a rock when we went over the falls. I rubbed my neck and examined my fingers but there was no blood, no sign of injury.

  I shrugged it off and swam leisurely back across the river, enjoying the strange warmness I felt in the cold water. I dove down and spun around, flipping in the current. I felt at ease.

  When I returned, a roaring fire blazed and everyone huddled nearby, trying to warm up and dry off. I couldn’t help but notice Lunaris’ figure as she stood in her undergarments, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she hung her clothing over the same tree limb that held mine. Her brown hair, half black with lingering wet, draped down in gentle waves that sat upon her breasts and shoulders and glinted in the sun. She had developed into a woman in the time I was under the barn. She was beautiful. She turned from her clothes and caught me stealing a glimpse of her. She pretended not to see me, and slowly curled a bashful and hidden smile on her face as she looked away, back to her clothing.

  Fiama prepared our mid-day meal and we packed our gear, which quickly dried in the sun and breeze. We were nestled in a patchy wood between the two forks of the river. The large rocky walls that lined the rapids had dispersed to nothing more than sparse large rubble among the wood. Boulders seemed to be strewn about haphazardly between the trees.

  #

  The midday
sun shone upon us comfortably through the thin tree canopy, and the gentle river breeze cooled us as we continued walking north, along the western bank of the eastern fork. I located our position on a map I had packed from Patreus’ study. Deius looked on with me. It reoccurred to me what happened in all the confusion and commotion after we toppled over the falls. Deius had sprung at me and attacked me. I thought perhaps he was approaching me to apologize.

  “Is that where we are?” he asked, pointing at the correct location on the map.

  “Yes,” I said. There was an awkward silence between us, tense with emotion. “Deius what’s happening? We used to be such close friends. In fact, you and your family are my only friends,” I pressed him.

  “Nothing,” he said abruptly. “Nothing is wrong and I’m sorry I hit you,” he quickly and half-heartedly responded.

  “I’m sure your father will train us soon, Deius.” I tried to console him, assuming the cause for his distress.

  “It’s not about that,” he snapped. “Just leave me alone.” He walked off speedily up ahead to join his father. Deius sneered back in my direction, wincing at me with his eyes closing halfway from the bottom lids.

  I thought perhaps Patreus had not seen Deius attack me in his grief over Lunaris, or perhaps he had forgotten as I nearly had. But then I saw him talking sternly to Deius up ahead. Deius seemed frustrated and he soon stomped away like a child, pouting. He followed the group on his own, a few strides away from the rest of us.

  Peitus scouted ahead of the group, assessing the terrain and climbing the rocks and boulders that lined the river. He cupped his hand on his brow, shielding his eyes from the sun to get a better view of the land ahead. He pointed, mumbled to himself and was off with renewed conviction each time.

  Fiama and Patreus walked beside Lunaris, each one holding one of her hands. They were so happy. Often Lunaris looked back at me and smiled. I returned the gesture. Eventually she made her way over to me while we all continued northbound.

  “I followed your voice,” she said.

  “What?” I said, confused.

  “When I was dreaming, after we went over the falls. You said ‘Come back, please don’t leave us,’ and then I ran to you and hugged you like the day you awoke in our cabin.”

  “I didn’t say a word.”

  “But I heard you,” she insisted.

  “That’s strange,” I said. “I thought those words but I didn’t say them aloud.”

  “Well, whatever it was, it woke me up,” she said. "And there I was; in your arms, right where I dreamed of being." Her words echoed in my mind. In my arms. Right where she dreamed of being. I became lost in her glass blue eyes. They glinted like twinkling stars, flickering and dancing in the shifting sunlight that beamed through, and then quickly hid behind, the thin tree canopy above. I drew near to her, pulled in by her beauty.

  “There’s a lake up ahead.” Peitus' voice boomed back from up ahead, shattering my trance. He was perched on a rock like a falcon scouting the landscape. His words echoed through the wood.

  “That is one of the Chasm Pools,” Patreus explained.

  As we entered a clearing near the edge of the wood, we came upon several oddly shaped lakes filled with still, blue-black river water.

  “What are these lakes? They seem so unnatural,” Lunaris commented.

  “These are a few of the smaller chasms that tore into the ground when Scievah first touched the Firestone. They are like Gelande’s Ravines, only now filled with the waters from the flow of the Tillian,” Patreus explained.

  “We must cross the pool here where it is most narrow. The Locht Span is not far from the opposite side,” Patreus directed.

  We waded out in our undergarments with our clothing stuffed in our packs. We held our gear above our heads to keep everything dry as we crossed. The icy water grew dark after just a few steps. Then the bottom suddenly dropped out unexpectedly from under our feet, and we were once again up to our necks in water. I imagined the chasm reached down deep, as far as Uhaaretu. If emptied, I thought, its rocky walls could form a sharp and treacherous canyon, the likes of which even Tillius would have trouble navigating and exploring.

  When we were about halfway across the chasm pool I noticed a violent bubbling toward the center. Thin white wisps of smoke escaped from within the bursting bubbles that rose from the deep. They wound their way upward in the air, while a thick fog hovered heavily and spread out across the surface of the water.

  “What is that in the middle of the pool?” I asked.

  “A steam vent. Some of the chasms tore down so far that they caused a deep heat to escape through fissures that reach far down into Uhaaretu, much like a volcano, only down in the ground instead of atop a mountain,” Patreus explained.

  Just then I felt a swirl of disturbed water move around me, as if something large created a void after it passed.

  “Something’s moving,” I announced. “There’s something alive, swimming around me.”

  “I felt it too,” Fiama verified. "It brushed against my leg."

  Suddenly a tight squeeze gripped around my left foot. I struggled, trying to break loose. A moment later a sharp tug brought me under the water completely. My pack floated up to the surface out of my hands and I opened my eyes to see a giant serpent constricting around my leg and pulling me down. It was barely visible in this dark pool; its sleek shape was a silhouette among shadows.

  Thick as a tree trunk, it began to wrap itself around my chest, squeezing out whatever small amount of breath was left in me. The sound of rushing water filled my ears as the serpent pulled me further down into the abyss, crushing me like a peanut in the hand of a giant. An immense pressure surrounded me, and I became light headed and dizzy the further we spiraled downward.

  Then something strange happened. There was a tingling and burning itch on my neck again, this time on both sides, and I realized I was not drowning. I was not breathing, yet I felt no need for air here in the deep. As we dived down I began to hear a rumbling of bubbles growing louder and louder. The serpent was pulling me deeper and deeper, toward the steam vent, where I imagined the heat would boil me alive. I began to pry the serpent from my leg and waist, yanking at its body so furiously that I tore off one of his plate-sized scales. But it was no use; its grip was far too strong.

  Then the beast lifted its head and faced me. Its head was the size of my entire upper body and its large red eyes glared at me through the dark cobalt waters with an ominous glow. Suddenly, its long forked tail whipped up and wrapped itself around my neck. It was only then that I began to feel choked for air. I grabbed at my neck, clasping and clawing at the serpent’s tail. My fingers slipped off its slimy, glass-like, rigid scales. I could not grip it, and my body grew limp. I gasped, swallowing a mouthful of water. It was warm, like a hot bath, and getting hotter. A strange sense of comfort washed over me as I embraced my end. My eyelids grew heavy, sleepy. I began to see faint sparkles before the blackness crept in.

  In a flash the serpent cocked its head back and moved to strike me in the face. I accepted my fate and closed my eyes. But just before I shut them I caught a glimpse of something; a long object ripped through the water and plunged into the serpent’s neck, cutting it down in mid strike and killing it instantly.

  The beast’s grip released and loosened all around my body. I peeled its forked tail from around my neck and suddenly I felt my breath replenish somehow. I wriggled free from its embrace, and saw a trident lodged in its neck.

  Then something came swimming quickly toward me. Another creature of the deep! I cringed in fear, shutting my eyes and balling up to protect myself from an onslaught, but instead something grabbed my hand. In a gargled voice, the creature spoke to me.

  “It’s okay. Let’s get you to the surface.”

  I opened my eyes to behold what I could only guess was an Aquidian. He pulled his trident from the serpent’s body and together we shot upward through the steam bubbles. The water cooled as we swam up, away from the
deep heat source.

  We surfaced abruptly and I instinctively inhaled to catch my breath, only I realized I didn’t need to, and a ponderous look came upon my face. I looked over to my new found friend and he held a webbed hand out toward me.

  “I am Erdus, a messenger,” he introduced himself loudly, not realizing how much his throaty voice carried above the water in the air.

  At a loss for words, I introduced myself as well. “I am Valdren,” I paused, “a traveler.” I struggled to put a title on myself, confused and baffled by this marvelous creature and the strange, dangerous events that just transpired.

  “I know who you are, young one,” he said, this time with adjusted volume. “Your name is a familiar one among the pure. It is a pleasure and an honor to meet you,” he said as he formally greeted me, as Felgor had done, with both hands, trident tucked under the pit of his arm.

  He had a strange accent which I had never heard before. Some of his words were drawn out longer than how I normally pronounced them. It was different from the gruff and choppy accent associated with the Uhaareti. We swam toward the others, who were shocked and stunned to see the merman slither out as we approached from the water.

  “We lost you. Whatever that serpent was, it brought you very deep,” cried Fiama.

  I could see that the others had suffered some grief over the thought of losing me, but their sadness quickly changed to wonder and awe at the sight of the Aquidian.

  We looked upon Erdus in amazement; Peitus, Lunaris, Deius and I. None of us had seen an Aquidian before. He had no legs, but, rather, a serpentine lower body with a fantail fin, which he held up off the ground as he elegantly slithered about. The skin on his lower body was scaled like a chubfish, and his upper body was reminiscent of my mother’s milky blue and shiny complexion, only stronger, thicker and more vibrant. The sunlight danced upon his skin, making him shimmer. On his neck, beneath his ears, were three small slits of pink skin that resembled gills. Brightly colored diamond shaped fins ran in a line up his spine and came to a beautiful crest of elaborate wisps and fins atop his head, as if he had colorful stiffened pointy spikes for hair. His hands had webbing between the four long fingers, but not between the thumb and forefinger.