On top of the daunting nature of their task, however, they were faced with yet another serious problem, and one to which not even Wixelor could provide a solution: where the threshold to the world of Erat Rin lay, and how it might be crossed.
“I’m quite confident it is somewhere in Feerien,” he said. “The Sphere of Toil has always been the most solid, stable realm of Norien – and as we all know, there are portals connecting it with both Lurien and Ienar Lin. But as to where exactly this other entry can be found, I’m afraid I’m as clueless as you. I’d merely venture to say that it must be a place equally tucked away as the Forgotten Sphere, one that flickers between existence and non-existence, that is as much a somewhere as it is a nowhere.”
Yodren’s face suddenly lit up with a thought so hopeful he had to stop himself from leaping to his feet and arousing Yonfi’s curiosity again. For Wixelor’s description had brought up the mislaid memory of an image, whose oddness had only been ignored because of the onslaught of oddities that had succeeded it: standing at the window of his cell and seeing a spring of fiery sparks illuminate the darkening sky.
“I think I know of just such a place,” he quietly said.
According to the legends, before the Disaster that gave them their name, the Drowning Isles had been the first part of Feerien to emerge from the roiling waters that covered the rest of the sphere, back when the future Kingdoms were still but ocean floors and ridges.
And it was on those three islands that the first human beings had appeared – though how this had come about remained to this day a mystery which not even the most astute adepts in ancient texts had penetrated. Some went as far as to say that the Isles were the original abode of the Spirits, and thus a place of great enchantment; but so little was actually known about them, that they next appeared in post-Disaster myths, which claimed that the rising of the Seventh Moon had first caused them to sink, along with their dwellers, then to rise again, lifeless and barren, and ever after to surface and submerge in a pattern no one could ever decipher – though never all three at once.
As one would expect, over the centuries there had been many attempts to solve the riddle of the Drowning Isles, yet none had ever come to fruition, while some forays had been the end of those brave and foolish enough to undertake them. The Feeres had never been accomplished seamen, after all, and the Isles, apart from their erratic rising and falling (which had been the cause of every fatal wreck, when the poorly-made boats were shattered to pieces by the emerging reefs of jagged black rock) were surrounded by another gloomy myth, suggesting that they were still haunted by the souls of all the drowned ancient islanders, whose only release was to drag whomever approached down to the same watery grave.
“And you say you saw them all together, and one of them gushing fire?” Gallan said in a low voice, to avoid being overheard by Yonfi who was still sulking at a corner of the room, banging the broken shards of stone together like a much younger child.
“But where could they possibly lead you to besides the bottom of the sea?” Yern asked with visibly growing concern. “And what if they truly are haunted?”
“Well, perhaps I can answer that,” Wixelor said, bent in a conspiratorial posture that somehow made him look even more huge. “You see, the dreams of most people are very often about the souls of their lost ones, and this need to know what becomes of us after we die is so intense that the same souls may visit their waking hours as ghosts, friendly or fearsome depending on their own feelings about mortality. However, even though no one knows if there is a life after this one and what it’s like, I’m fairly certain that the souls of the departed cannot return – for otherwise their sheer number and the resentment so many of them must surely bear would make life unlivable.”
Yern accepted this plausible truth in silence, though from the pain that crossed his face it was clear that he was thinking of his own two cherished souls, wandering in that ominous uncertainty, that awful possibility of everlasting death.
“How can we reach these islands?” Raddia asked, at the same time letting part of her Substance waft towards Yern’s mind to console him. “Should we go on one of those vessels? Because, from what I gather, they don’t sound very reliable.”
Yodren shrugged in equal ignorance; if boats still existed in Feerien, or boatmen to sail them, he knew nothing about them.
Then Wixelor cleared his throat – a sound quite normal to his own ears, but in truth loud enough to rouse even Yonfi from his show of moodiness – and made another helpful suggestion.
“It might not be very comfortable for too long a journey,” he said, “but judging from your – well – modest size, I think we can try to get there by flying.”
The Runes of Norien Page 45
