by Terry Brooks
They continued on for a short time, not much more than another half an hour, arriving at a broad, thick stand of huge old conifers, their once green needles turned silvery by nature and the elements. It was a strange sight, the trees stretching away for miles in all directions, seemingly all the way to the lower slopes of the mountains west. Without hesitating, Simralin took them directly into their center, striding ahead confidently, her blond hair a silken shimmer in the hazy light. Angel and Kirisin followed, neither saying anything. The woods were deep and gray and silent, and the emptiness was its own presence. Such places bothered Angel, who preferred the stones and bricks and concrete of the city. In the city, you could find your way. Here, there was nothing to tell you even so much as the direction in which you were going. The trees blocked the mountains. The haze diffused the sunlight. Everything looked the same.
Then abruptly the terrain changed from dust and scrub to an uneven hardpan that the wind had swept clear of everything loose. There were strange, twisted trees with spiky leaves and peeling bark set in among the conifers. There were tall stands of scrub, some of them more than six feet high. In minutes, they were deep into this new stand of foliage, and Angel was hopelessly lost. Her hands tightened on her staff, reassuring herself that she was not entirely powerless. But the woods seemed to press in against her anyway, threatening to suffocate her, to steal away her power.
“I hate this,” she muttered.
Kirisin looked over and nodded, but said nothing.
Angel was just beginning to wonder if this was leading to anything when the trees opened before them and they found themselves at the edge of a broad, shallow ravine surrounding a rocky flat on which two piles of brush covered a pair of square-shaped objects; what might once have been a third pile lay scattered about on the rocks nearby.
For the first time, Simralin hesitated, her forehead furrowing with concern. “There should be three,” she said, mostly to herself, but loud enough that her companions could hear her. “What happened to the third?”
Angel moved a few steps closer, right to the edge of the ravine, and peered at the two that were still covered. “Are those baskets of some sort?” she asked in surprise.
Simralin nodded. “They are. But there should be another. Wait here.”
She crossed the ravine, walking down into it and climbing out the other side, then moving over to the discarded pile of brush, peering intently at the ground. When she had seen enough, she cast about at the surrounding woods, and then looked back at them. “I can’t be sure. The ground is too rocky for a clear read. One man, I think. But it could be more. I don’t understand it. We don’t have any Trackers out this way just now.”
She knelt, studying the footprints a second time. “Nothing special about the few scuffs I can make out.” She shook her head. “If it was the demons, I could read the marks from that cat thing. But if it was just the other…” She trailed off. “All right. Come on over.”
Angel crossed with Kirisin and stood looking down at ground so hard and rocky it told her absolutely nothing. She could not understand how Simralin had determined as much as she had. “What’s going on?” she asked. “What are we doing here?”
“Uncover one of those baskets,” she said by way of response. “Kirisin can help. Remove everything you find packed in the bottom, separate it, and spread it out on the ground. Don’t try to attach any of it. Leave that to me. I’ll be back in a moment.”
She walked back down into the ravine, out the other side, and off into the trees until she could no longer be seen. Angel looked at Kirisin, and together they moved over to the closest basket, pulled off the dead limbs and brush concealing it—Angel thinking as they did so that this sort of concealment would only work against someone looking down from above, not someone who somehow happened upon it—and peered down into the basket interior. The basket was divided into four compartments, interlocking partitions that sectioned the interior and served as bracing for the sides. A tightly folded piece of material was shoved into the bottom along with various ropes, metal locking clasps, and hoses.
“What is this?” Angel asked the boy.
Kirisin shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Together they emptied the contents of the basket on the ground, laying out all the pieces separately as Simralin had told them to do. The material turned out to be a lightweight fabric that Angel could not identify, thin but strong, a mottled gray and white in color. Once it was unfolded and spread out, it took on a recognizable shape.
“This looks like a balloon,” Angel said.
“A hot-air balloon,” Simralin amended, striding out of the ravine once more. “Which is what will get us where we’re going.”
She was carrying several solar cells and what looked to be some sort of small motor. She put the solar cells into the basket and the motor on the ground next to the mouth of the balloon.
“This is a burner,” she advised, gesturing at the motor. She hooked up one end of the hose to a nozzle and shoved the other into the mouth of the balloon. “It heats the air and feeds it into the bag, which inflates. When the bag is full, it lifts the basket and its occupants off the ground.”
She flipped a switch, and the burner roared to life, breaking the silence. Slowly, the balloon began to fill. “Elven Trackers use these balloons for long-distance travel. We keep them hidden away in a handful of places on both sides of the mountains. Humans invented them, but we saw a use for them, too. Our Trackers began appropriating them a generation ago. We were using them even before your government collapsed, but after the wars started we began using them more frequently. We found it impossible to move about as we once had. Much of the open country was flooded with militia and mutated creatures. Much of it was dangerously poisoned. And travel time became a more important factor in many instances. The balloons helped us solve those problems.”
“Elves using human technology,” Angel murmured, shaking her head.
“Once in a while.” Simralin grinned. “We know enough to take advantage of a good thing. I’ll show you another example when we get to Syrring Rise.”
She gave the pile of brush to one side a quick glance. “We had three, but someone has taken one. Took some cells and a burner, too. All that equipment was hidden back in the rocks. Only long-range Trackers know where all that is; stumbling over it by accident is highly unlikely.”
She shook her head, turning to the ropes and clasps. “Here. Help me attach these to the balloon and the basket,” she said.
Under her direction, they made the balloon ready, watching the bag fill and begin to lift slowly off the ground. By that time, they had it firmly attached and had placed the burner and their gear inside the basket. Ropes tied to old logs and dead trees held the basket grounded as it strained to rise skyward. When Simralin was satisfied that it was ready, she ordered the other two into the basket, climbed in after them, released the restraining ropes, and they were off.
Madre de Dios, Angel thought.
It was like nothing she had ever experienced. The earth dropped away as they ascended into the midday sky, trees and rocks and rivers and lakes growing slowly smaller, the landscape spreading away in miniature. Save for when Simralin used the compressor to feed more hot air into the bag, they were enveloped by a silence so deep and intense that it felt to Angel almost as if she had left everything terrible in her life behind. The basket bobbed softly on the wind currents, but mostly it just hung there, steady and smooth as Simralin steered it toward the mountains north and west.
“How do you like it?” the Tracker asked her at one point.
Angel grinned and nodded. “Any danger of the bag collapsing?”
Simralin shook her head. “The fabric is one we developed. Very strong, very tough. Rain doesn’t bother it. Even resists blades. A lightning strike is the biggest concern, but our weather is good.” She smiled. “Much better than walking. We’ll be there by sunset.”
They flew at a steady pa
ce toward a gap in the mountain chain, the winds favoring a northwest flight. But Angel could tell that Simralin had considerable flying experience, working smoothly to keep the balloon on a course that carried it in the general direction required, maneuvering flaps that opened and closed in the bag, releasing small bursts of air to gain momentum or adjust height. She had learned to read and measure the movement of air currents and, after attaching the extra hoses to side ports in the basket, was able to change direction. It wasn’t a perfect science, even when all of it was cobbled together. At times, they drifted off course, but the Elven Tracker always seemed to find a way to bring them back around, tacking first one way and then another.
The hours crawled by, a passage that felt desperately at odds with the urgency of their undertaking. Angel scanned the ground they passed over, searching for something more than changes in the terrain. Signs of life. Signs of pursuit. Something of the dangers she knew she couldn’t see, but were there, nevertheless. It felt safe flying hundreds of feet in the air. But she knew the feeling was false.
They gained the far side of the peaks and caught prevailing southerly winds along the west face of the chain that carried them north. The winds waxed and waned with the passing of the afternoon, gusting at times, dying away completely at others. They flew over miles of blighted forests and foothills, keeping clear of the chain’s taller peaks, avoiding the canyons and defiles where the winds were treacherous and might blow them into the cliffs. Although Kirisin was full of questions, his natural curiosity demanding explanations that his sister was hard-pressed to provide, Angel was content just to observe, preferring the luxury of the silence that this wondrous flight afforded them. Silence was not easily found in the city. Until you were dead, of course, like Johnny, and then it was forever.
It was nearing sunset when they reached Syrring Rise. The winds had picked up a bit, and they were encountering gusts that knocked them about, requiring that Simralin abandon her efforts at answering Kirisin’s unending questions in favor of keeping them stable. Angel found herself gripping the sides of the basket tightly. They caught sight of the snowcapped peak all at once, a huge block of rock and snow and ice rising up against the horizon as they came out from behind a group of smaller mountains, its mass rising far above where they flew, towering over lesser mountains, over broad stretches of land, over everything for as far as the eye could see. It was the biggest monolith Angel had ever seen, but it was also the most beautiful. Here, unlike everywhere else she had been on her travels, save in parts of the Cintra, the air was clean and clear, and the details of the mountain and its surroundings jumped out at her in sharp relief. She stared in disbelief at how pure everything surrounding this volcanic giant seemed, as if Mother Nature’s hand had swept away from this one majestic setting the whole of the world’s pollution and sickness.
When she asked about this, wanting to know how it was possible, Simralin said that it was mostly due to the work of Elves who lived on the slopes of Paradise, the name given to this side of the mountain. Her parents had wanted the Elves to form a settlement here, but the most they could accomplish in the face of opposition from Arissen Belloruus was to found a small community of caretakers. These few worked with what small Elven magic they were able to command to blend elements of earth, air, and water to keep at bay the rot and poisoning that had set in so deeply elsewhere. The Elves still had skills enough for this, although it was becoming increasingly clear that it was a losing battle. Their efforts in the Cintra were already failing.
She maneuvered the balloon toward the meadows that blanketed the lower slopes, vast patches of green dotted with wildflowers that Angel hadn’t thought existed anywhere. She tried to remember when she had last seen flowers in such profusion. Never, she decided. Even within the Cintra, they had been confined to small areas. Here they stretched away in sweeping blankets that formed a colorful border between the forests lower down and the bare rock and ice farther up. She searched the mountainside for signs of life, thinking she would see some of the Elven caretakers that Simralin had mentioned. But there was no sign of anyone.
When she asked where they were, Simralin shook her head. There were only a handful, and these were scattered all across the lower slopes of the mountain. They were unlikely to find any of them without making a concerted effort. The caretakers were used to the occasional presence of Trackers and, for the most part, left them to their work unless summoned. There was no reason to disturb them here.
The sun had gone far west by now, shadows lengthening across the mountain in great, dark stains. The color was fading from the world, and the air was turning cold. Angel glanced toward the snowcapped peak; the failing light glistened in sharp bursts off the ice field.
“We’ll need to take shelter before dark,” Simralin advised. “Or freeze to death.”
She brought the balloon down at the edge of one of the meadows, shutting down the burner and using the vent flaps in the bag. The basket tipped on its side as it landed, and the balloon dragged it for a short distance before enough air seeped out to collapse it. The three travelers scrambled from the basket and hauled in the fabric, folding it over as Simralin showed them, gathering up all the stays and ties. When they had everything collected and disconnected, she had them stow it in the basket.
“No one will disturb it,” she said. “We’ll use it on our return, once we’re finished here. Let’s take shelter and make something to eat.”
After gathering up their gear, she led them toward a stand of conifers at the far right end of the meadow, whistling softly in the deep mountain silence.
THEY SPENT THE NIGHT in a line shack used by the caretakers during their treks across the slopes of the mountain, a tiny shelter set back in the trees that was all but invisible until you were right on top of it. If Simralin hadn’t known it was there, they would never have found it. The shelter contained pallets rolled up and stored on shelves and some small supplies. The visitors used the pallets to sleep on, but left the supplies alone. Food and drink were hard to come by, and they carried sufficient of their own not to have to impose.
Sunrise broke gray and misty, a change from the previous day and a type of weather that came all too infrequently. Looking out at the roiling clouds, it seemed to Kirisin that it might even rain. They ate their breakfast, and then Simralin had them stash most of their gear in a wooden bin. They would need warm clothing to protect them at the higher altitudes and food and water for three days. The climb up would take them one, the climb down another. That left the third to find and retrieve the Loden.
“Time enough,” Simralin declared.
“If that’s where it is,” Kirisin interjected quickly.
His sister shrugged. “Why don’t we find out? Use the Elfstones. We’re close enough now that we won’t give anything away by doing so.”
They walked outside, passed back through the woods, and stepped out into the meadow that carpeted the land upward to where the bare rock began and the last of the scattered trees ended. The air was thinner here, and Kirisin was already noticing that it was harder to breathe. But it also tasted fresh and clean and smelled of the conifers and the cold, so he didn’t mind. The air in the Cintra was good, too, but not as vibrant and alive as it was up here.
When they were far enough out in the open that he could see the peak clearly—a visual aid he didn’t necessarily need but would use since it was there—Kirisin brought out the pouch with the Elfstones, dumped the contents into his hand, and began the process of bringing the magic to life. He had a better feel for what was needed this time, having found what worked when he used them back in the Cintra. He held the Stones in a loose and easy grip, his arm stretched out toward Syrring Rise, and took his thoughts away from everything but an attempt to visualize the ice caves the magic had shown him previously. Standing in the shadow of the mountain and beneath the sweep of the skies above it, he let himself sink into the quiet and the solitude.
Closing his eyes and disappearing inside himself.
Picturing the caves in his mind.
Feeling their cold hard surfaces and smelling the metal veins that laced their rock.
Seeing the rainbow shimmer of the sunlight that seeped through cracks and crevices, refracted and diffused, laced with bright splashes of color that seemed of another world.
Hearing their whisper, calling to him.
This last almost took him out of himself, very nearly disrupting his efforts to use the Elfstones. There was something eerie about that whisper, a feeling that the voice calling was real, not imagined—that someone or something was actually summoning him.
Then the Elfstones began to brighten, their blue light flaring to life within his closed hand, slender rays breaking free through the cracks in his fingers, the warmth of the magic spreading into his body and infusing him with a sudden rush of adrenaline. He kept himself as steady as he could, his thoughts focused, not letting the sudden exhilaration he felt overwhelm him. But it was hard. He wanted to cry out with excitement, to give voice to what he was feeling. The magic was intoxicating; he wanted it to go on forever.
A second later, the gathering light lanced outward from his fist, hurtling toward the summit of Syrring Rise, traversing the meadow and the wildflowers, the bare rock beyond, the stunted conifers that Simralin had told him were thousands of years old, reaching for the higher elevations. At a point beyond the snow line, but only just above the edge of the glacier and its ice fields, it burrowed into the white landscape, encapsulating in a flood of azure light the caves they were seeking. He saw them again, more clearly defined this time, walls sculpted by time and the elements, ceiling vast and shadowed beyond the reach of the light, snowmelt churning in a river cored through the center, waterfalls frozen in place where they had tumbled from the higher elevations.
There was something else, too—something he couldn’t quite make out. It hunkered down in the very rear of the largest chamber, a thing crouched and waiting, all iced over and brilliant with silvery light. It was massive, and it was terrible; he could sense it more than feel it. It did not move, but only waited. Yet he had a feeling it was alive.