“Someone’s coming?” Mince whispered to Princess. Her head bounced up and down, which shocked him, but then she quickly followed that with a shaking as well.
A few moments later, he heard hooves and he ran to the Hovel to wake the others.
“Who is it?” Brand whispered.
“How should I know?” Mince replied, pulling himself fully inside.
“It’s certainly not Hadrian and the rest,” Elbright pointed out. “They left their horses with us.”
“Maybe it’s Renwick coming back?” Kine suggested hopefully, and this returned several positive looks and nods.
“One of us should look,” Elbright said commandingly, getting to his knees and pulling on his cloak.
“Not me,” Mince said. “Let Brand do it. He’s the bold one.”
“Hush,” Elbright snapped, “I’m going.”
He pulled a bit of the tarp aside and looked out.
“Do you see ’em?” Kine asked.
“No.”
“Maybe they—”
“Shh!” Elbright held up his hand. “Listen.”
Faint voices carried across the stillness of the winter morning.
“They went down here,” a voice said.
“Oh my! That does look rather unpleasant. Is Your Grace certain?”
“Absolutely.”
“They don’t sound like elves,” Kine whispered.
“Like you know how elves talk,” Mince said.
“It doesn’t sound like Renwick either,” Brand added.
“Will you all shut up!” Elbright hissed, slapping Kine on the head.
“It’s so deep you can’t see the bottom.” The faint voice spoke again.
“It’s very deep indeed.”
“There are no tracks near it.”
“They are still inside, still down there, still dredging up secrets and stirring old memories, but they are coming. Already they are quite near and they have the horn.”
“How do you know that?”
“Call it… an old man’s intuition.”
“That’s good, isn’t it? That they have the horn?”
“Oh yes, that is very good.”
The sound of crunching snow could be heard, growing louder.
“They’re coming this way,” Elbright said.
“Can you see them yet?” Kine asked.
“There are four of them. One looks like a priest in a black frock, two are soldiers, and there’s an old man in bright-colored robes with long white hair. The soldiers are kind of strange-looking.”
“What are they doing here?” Brand asked.
“Their horses,” a voice outside said. They were much closer now. The boys could hear the squishing of the slushy ground. “You can come out, young men.”
They looked at each other nervously.
“Renwick, Elbright, Brand, Kine, Mince, come, we are going to have breakfast.”
Elbright was the first one out, emerging from the tarp carefully. His head turned from side to side. They each followed him slowly, squinting in the sunlight, and just as Elbright had described, four men stood before them in the small clearing. They looked terribly out of place. The man with the long white hair was wearing purple, red, and gold robes and he leaned on a staff. To either side stood the soldiers, in gold breastplates, helms, and sleeves. They also wore colorful pants of red, purple, and yellow. Each held a spear and wore a sword. The priest was the only normal-looking fellow, standing with his weight on one leg in the traditionally drab black habit of a Nyphron priest.
“Who are you?” Elbright asked.
“This is His Grace the Patriarch of the Nyphron Church,” the priest told him.
“Oh,” Elbright said, nodding. Mince could tell he was trying to sound like he knew who that was, but his friend knew better. Elbright was always doing that, making out like he was more worldly than he was.
“These are his bodyguards and I am Monsignor Merton of Ghent.”
“Guess you already know us,” Elbright said. “What are you doing here?”
“Just waiting,” the Patriarch replied. “Like you—waiting for them to climb back out of that hole and change the nature of the world forever. Certainly you can’t begrudge us the desire of a front-row seat.”
The old man looked at his guards and they trudged off.
“How’s Renwick?” Mince asked. “Did he make it to Aquesta?”
“I’m sorry,” Monsignor Merton replied kindly. “We traveled by sea around the horn to Vernes and then by coach. We left quite some time ago, so it is entirely possible that he arrived after we left. Was he a friend?”
Mince nodded.
“He rode to Aquesta with news that the elves were attacking from the southeast,” Brand said. “They came right by here, they did.”
“I’m sorry I can’t tell you more,” the priest said.
“Pleasant little place you have here,” the old man mentioned, looking around. “It’s nice that you put your camp under the holly tree. I like the splash of green on such a day as this, when it seems as if all the color has been stolen. It has been a long, cold winter, but it will soon be over. A new world is about to bloom.”
Mince heard the distant sound of music and instantly he threw his hands to his ears.
“Is that…?” Elbright asked, alarmed, raising his own hands as Mince bobbed his head.
“Relax, boys,” the Patriarch said. “That melody is not enchanted. It is the “Ibyn Ryn,” the Ervian anthem.”
“But it’s the elves!” Elbright said. “They’re coming!”
“Yes.” The Patriarch glanced up the hill and then down at the hole. “It’s a race now.”
CHAPTER 26
THE RETURN
I love this chamber,” Arista said as they spread out blankets on the same flat rock. Overhead the glowworms glimmered and winked, and she noticed for the first time how much she missed seeing the sky.
Magnus gathered his rocks in the center once more. “This is nothing compared to the wonders that I have seen in the deep. My grandfather once took me into the mountains of the Dithmar Range of Trent to a place only he knew. He told me that I needed to know where I came from. He took me deep into a crevasse to where a river went underground. We disappeared inside for weeks. My mother and father were furious when we finally returned. They didn’t want me to get ideas. They had already given up, but my grandfather—he knew.”
Magnus sparked a stone against another. “The things he showed me were amazing. Chambers hundreds of times the size of this one made of shimmering crystal so that a single glow stone could make it bright as day. Stone cathedrals with pillars and teeth, and waterfalls that dropped so far you could not hear the roar. Everything down there was so vast, so wide, so big—we felt immeasurably small. It is sometimes hard to believe in Drome, seeing what has become of his people, but in places like this, and certainly in halls like the ones my grandfather showed me, it’s like seeing the face of god firsthand.”
Arista spread her blanket next to Hadrian.
“What are you trying to do there, Magnus?” Hadrian asked.
“Provide a little light. There are lots of this kind of stone here. My grandfather showed me how to make them burn—smolder, really.”
“Let me help.” Arista made a modest motion and the trio of rocks ignited and burned as a perfect campfire.
The dwarf frowned. “No, no. Stop it. I can get it.”
Arista clapped and the fire vanished. “I just wanted to help.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not natural.”
“And making rocks glow by slamming them together is?” Hadrian asked.
“Yes—if you’re a dwarf.”
Magnus got his rocks glowing and the rest gathered around them to eat. They were each down to their last meals and hoped to emerge aboveground the following day, or the last leg of the trip would be a hungry one.
“Aha!” Myron said. He had laid his books out near the rocks, giddy that there was enough light to read by.
“Discover the proper pronunciation to another name?” Hadrian asked. “Is Degan’s real name Gwyant?”
“Hum? Oh, no, I found Mawyndulë—the one Antun Bulard and Esrahaddon spoke of.”
“You found him?”
“Yes, in this book. Ever since I read Mr. Bulard’s last scribbled words, I’ve been trying to find information on him. I reasoned that he must have read something shortly before he died. As these were the only books he had with him in the library, it stood to reason that Mawyndulë was mentioned somewhere in one of them. Wouldn’t you know it would be in the last book I read? Migration of Peoples by Princess Farilane. It is really a very biased accounting of how the Instarya clan took control of the elven empire. But it mentions Nyphron, the horn, and Mawyndulë.”
“What does it say?” Arista asked.
“It says the elves were constantly warring between the various tribes, and quite a bloody and violent people until they obtained the horn.”
“I mean, what does it say about Mawyndulë?”
“Oh.” Myron looked embarrassed. “I don’t know. I haven’t read that yet. I just saw his name.”
“Then let’s be quiet and let the man read.”
Everyone remained silent, staring at the monk as he scanned the pages. Arista wondered if all the glaring distracted Myron, but as he rapidly turned page after page of dense script, she realized that the monk was unflappable with a book before him.
“Oh,” Myron finally said.
“ ‘Oh’ what?” Arista asked.
“I know why the horn didn’t make a sound when Degan blew it.”
“Well?” Hadrian asked.
The monk looked up. “You were right. Like you said in the tomb, it’s a horn of challenge.”
“And?”
“Degan’s already king. He can’t challenge himself, so it made no sound.”
“What does all this have to do with Mawyndulë?” Arista asked.
Myron shrugged. “Still reading.”
The monk returned his attention to the book.
“We should be out tomorrow, right?” Arista asked Hadrian, who nodded. “How long have we been down here?”
Hadrian shrugged and looked to Royce.
The thief, having completed his survey of the perimeter, took a seat around the glow of the rocks with the rest of them and fished in his pack for his meal. “At least a week.”
“What will we find up there?” she asked herself as much as anyone else. “What if we’re too late?”
“So the Uli Vermar is the reign of a king,” Myron said. “Usually three thousand years—the average life span of an elf, apparently.”
“Really?” Mauvin asked, and glanced at Royce. “How old are you?”
“Not that old.”
“Remember the emperors in the tomb?” Arista said. “Mixing elven blood with human reduces the life span.”
“Yeah, but he’ll still outlive everyone here, except maybe Gaunt, right?”
“Why me?” Gaunt, who had been miserably picking at the remains of his meal, looked up.
“You’re an elf too.”
Gaunt grimaced. “I’m an elf?”
“You’re related to Novron, right?”
“But… I don’t want to be an elf.”
“You’ll get used to it.” Royce smirked.
“Ah, here it is,” Myron said. “Mawyndulë was a member of the Miralyith, and during the time before Novron, they were the ruling tribe.” He paused and, looking up, added, “Unlike us, elves don’t have consistent nobility. Whichever tribe the king is from becomes the ruling one and holds power over the rest, but only for one generation, or the length of the Uli Vermar. Then they face the challenge and if a new king wins the throne, his tribe becomes the new ruling elite.”
“But not anyone in the tribe can challenge for the chance to be king, I’ll bet,” Gaunt said. “There is still a hereditary nobility in the tribes, right? There always is.”
“For once I have to side with him,” Royce said. “People might like to give the appearance of giving up power, but actually giving it up—that doesn’t happen.”
“Technically, I think anyone can challenge,” Myron explained. “But true, traditionally it is the leader of a given tribe. However, he is elected by the clan leaders.”
“Interesting,” Mauvin said. “A society without nobility, where leaders are elected. See, Gaunt? You really are an elf.”
“So someone blows the horn, fights, wins the challenge, and becomes king,” Arista stated. “He’s expected to rule for three thousand years, but what if he doesn’t? If he dies in an accident, then the crown goes to his next of kin. That part I get. But what happens if the king dies and doesn’t have any blood relatives? Then what?”
“That would also end the Uli Vermar,” Myron said. “And the first person to blow the horn then becomes the new king, and he then presents it to anyone else to challenge him. And that’s exactly what appears to have happened.” Myron tapped the page in the book. “After the battle of Avempartha, as Nyphron was poised to invade his homeland—”
“Wait a second,” Mauvin said. “Are Nyphron and Novron the same person?”
“Yes,” Myron, Arista, and Hadrian all said together.
“Just as Teshlor is the bastardized pronunciation of the elf warrior Techylor, Novron is the bastardized form of Nyphron. So as I was saying, Nyphron was poised to invade his homeland when the Uli Vermar ended, and the elven high council presented the horn to Novron, making him king and ending the war.”
“The Uli Vermar ended just then? That sounds awfully convenient,” Royce said. “I’m guessing the elven king didn’t die of natural causes.”
Myron looked back down and read aloud. “ ‘And so it came to pass that in the night of the day of the third turn, thus was sent Mawyndulë of the tribe Miralyith. And by the council he was thus charged with the…’ ” Myron stopped speaking, but his eyes raced across the page.
“What is it?” Arista asked, but Myron raised a finger to stall her.
They all watched as Myron reached up and turned another page, his eyes widening, his eyebrows rising.
“By Mar, monk!” Magnus erupted. “Stop reading and tell us.”
Myron looked up with a startled expression. “Mawyndulë murdered the elven king.”
“And if he had any children, they were also murdered, weren’t they?”
“No,” Myron said, surprising Royce. “His only son survived.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” Arista said. “If his son was alive, why didn’t he become king? Why did the Uli Vermar end?”
“Because,” Myron replied, “Mawyndulë was his son.”
It took a moment for this to register. The timing was different for each of them as around the circle of flickering light, they each made a sound of understanding.
“So Mawyndulë couldn’t become king because he had committed murder?” Hadrian asked.
“Regicide,” Myron corrected. “Significantly more deplorable in elvish society, for it places at risk the very foundation of their civilization and the peace that Ferrol granted them with the gift of the horn. As a result Mawyndulë was banished—stricken from elvish society and cursed by Ferrol, thereby barred from Alysin, the elvish afterlife.”
“So why did he do it?” Arista asked.
“Princess Farilane doesn’t actually say. Perhaps no one knows.”
“So Novron blew the horn and became king and that ended the war.” Hadrian finished the last of his meal and folded up his pack.
“That was certainly the plan,” Myron said. “No one was supposed to blow the horn after Novron did. No one was supposed to challenge his rule. According to the laws of the horn, if it is presented but no challenger blows the horn within the course of a day, then the king retains his crown.”
“But someone challenged?”
“Mawyndulë,” Myron said. “As it happens there are no restrictions on who can blow the horn other than they must be of elven b
lood. Even an outcast, even one cursed by Ferrol, can still challenge. And if he wins—”
“If he wins, he’s back in,” Royce finished.
“Yes.”
“But he lost, right?” Mauvin asked.
“Novron was a battle-hardened veteran of a lengthy war,” Hadrian concluded. “And Myron said Mawyndulë was just a kid?”
“Yes.” The monk nodded. “It was a quick and humiliating defeat.”
“But this doesn’t make sense,” Arista said. “Esrahaddon told us he was convinced that Mawyndulë was still alive.”
“Nyphron did not kill Mawyndulë. While the challenge is usually a fight to the death, Nyphron let him live. Perhaps because he was so young, or maybe because as an outcast he was no threat. What is known is that Mawyndulë was exiled, never allowed in Erivan again.”
“So how did Novron die?” Mauvin asked.
“He was murdered.”
“By who?”
“No one knows.”
“I would wager on Mawyndulë,” Royce said.
“Hmm…” Arista pulled on her lower lip, deep in thought.
“What?” Royce asked.
“I was just thinking about what Esrahaddon said when he was dying. He warned that the Uli Vermar was ending and that I had to take the heir to Percepliquis to get the horn. But his very last words were ‘Patriarch… is the same…’ I always assumed that he was never able to finish the sentence before he died, but what if he said all he meant to? Myron, how many patriarchs have there been?”
“Twenty-two including Patriarch Nilnev.”
“Yes, and how old is he?”
“I don’t recall reading about his birth, but he’s been patriarch for sixty years.”
“Myron, what are some of the other patriarchs’ names?”
“Before Patriarch Nilnev was Patriarch Evlinn. Before him was Patriarch Lenvin. Before that—”
Arista’s eyes widened. “Is it possible?”
“Is what possible?” Royce asked.
Arista got to her knees. “Does anyone have anything to write with?”
“I have a bit of chalk.” Myron produced a white nib from a pouch.
“Nilnev, Evlin, Lenvin, Venlin…” Arista scrawled the words on the flat rock.
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