by Terry Spear
"Our technology is…different." Even so, she watched what he was doing and helped him to make the food. "I'm surprised that a prince would know how to cook."
He smiled. "I know how to do many things."
The aroma of the pork stew caught Balen's attention and he came in to see them. "Oh, good, I was getting hungry." Then he said, "Oh! Your wings. What did you do?"
Eloria held up the crystal for Balen to see. "Viator saved it."
"Another crystal. Why would you need another crystal?"
Eloria explained what they had done. "Are you feeling all right?"
"Yeah." Balen had removed the bandage that she had made for him and the area was still swollen and now bruised. "Where to next?"
"Another door. But we need to turn this into an amulet also."
"We have a jeweler at the castle," Balen said. "He can create anything you're interested in creating." He frowned. "Why would you need two necklaces?"
"I don't know."
Viator glanced at her and the amulet, that was shining brightly. Then Viator began serving up the stew. "This should keep us going for the rest of the day. I'd say we should return to the castle tonight, but I'm afraid my parents will still be reluctant for Eloria to stay there."
Balen eyed the crystal again before she tucked it back in her skirt pocket. Balen rubbed his forehead below his injury. "All the elf kingdoms have their own jewelers. I was thinking we could take it to either the high elves or the shadow elves and see if one of their jewelers could make it into a necklace."
"What if the shadow elves are afraid of the same thing as Prince Zorak? Even though the prince has changed his tune, I'm not sure that Eloria would be comfortable going back there." Viator sat down at the table with the others.
"After what happened with the dragons, we might just get the royal treatment. Also, I was thinking, what if the high elves’ jeweler made this amulet? Then he would know how to create the perfect necklace for this one."
"The prince and I would be afforded royal treatment anyway," Balen reminded her.
She only smiled at him.
"I agree with Eloria. But should we continue to check out the doors?" Viator asked.
Eloria ate some of his stew and he paused to see if she liked it. She smiled. "This is fantastic. You don't even want to know what our food tasted like on the ship. I might just have to keep you around."
"You have no choice but to keep me around."
Balen snorted. "The prince does not make it a habit to cook meals for the general populace."
"What are you going to do if I marry the prince?" Eloria ate some more of the stew. She was almost done with her bowl and that pleased Viator.
He was also amused that she didn't take Balen seriously. She might not be a royal, but she certainly had royal qualities.
"The king and queen would not allow it." Then Balen smiled wickedly at her. "But I know, too, they will have no say in it."
"Did you have any other dreams that might aid us in our quest?" Viator asked.
"Only that I would receive a gift. I have no idea what it is. Or if it would help you in your quest."
Viator dished out more stew for everyone, glad they were finishing it up. Once they were done eating, Balen cleaned up the dishes, and then they packed their backpacks and left the living quarters to search for the next door.
Her crystal led them to the coiled-rope door. Viator opened it, and found they had another long, rock tunnel to traverse. Again, the tunnel wound its way up the mountain and he suspected from the direction the other had taken to the dragon's lair, this one went to the high elves’ castle. But he couldn't fathom what a coiled-rope would have to do with anything.
"High elves' castle." Balen was walking behind Viator and Eloria.
"That's what I'm thinking," Viator said.
"Maybe we can stay there the night," Balen said, "if whatever the quest here takes us some time."
"We could." Viator was thinking Eloria was probably ready for a rest. He was feeling like he could settle down, visit with Prince Zorak, and then retire for the night, getting an early start the next morning.
When they did finally reach a doorway, they found they couldn't open it.
But then Eloria brought out the other crystal and both glowed brightly. The door opened as if by magic.
"It appears we couldn't have opened this door without the other crystal," Eloria said.
"Just like the doors with the symbols had to be opened in a certain order." Viator glanced around at the place they were now. "It looks like we are in the dungeon."
There were no prisoners in any of the cells and they soon made their way to another wooden door. This one wasn't locked. Since no one was incarcerated in the cells, no one was guarding them either. They headed up a flight of stairs and finally reached the main part of the castle. As soon as a couple of guards some them, their jaws dropped.
"Prince Viator, we didn't see you enter through the main doors. We'll send word to Prince Zorak you have returned." The guard gave Eloria an irritated look, as if she was the one who had caused all the trouble between the high elves and their dragons. The guard motioned to a page who quickly went to tell the prince that Viator and his companions were there.
24
When the page spoke with Prince Zorak, while he was talking to his advisor, the boy said, "The human Eloria has returned with Prince Viator and Lord Balen."
Immediately, Zorak thought there was going to be some real trouble. Why else would they return here after all the fuss Eloria had caused the first time?
“Send them in at once.”
“Aye, Your Majesty.” The page hurried out of the great hall.
Prince Zorak ran his hands through his hair and stood up from his chair. “Now what?” He still felt that Eloria was here to attempt to steal Persephonice away. Even if the bracelets she used to travel from here to her ship were now destroyed, he feared the ship that left her off could return for her, only this time with warriors who would battle the elves.
The page returned, escorting Prince Viator, Lord Balen, and Eloria.
He acknowledged both the prince and the duke but ignored Eloria. She smiled.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of you returning here so soon?” Zorak asked.
“Does the green wizard still exist?” Viator asked.
“No. Why would you ask? Everyone knows he is long gone.” Zorak thought it was an odd question.
“In his memorial, he has living quarters and fresh food.”
Zorak motioned to seats around a table and asked the page to bring them wine. “All right. He’s dead, but our high minister arranges for a page to leave fresh food there weekly.”
“How does he get into the room? It’s locked. Does he have a special crystal to open it also?” Eloria asked.
“No. He says a special incantation and the door opens for him. How do you know about the door?” Zorak asked, frowning.
“It opens to her amulet. All the doors in his memorial do, in a specific order.” Viator folded his arms. “We need to speak with your jeweler. Did he fashion the amulet that Eloria wears? He would know if he did, I’m sure.”
The page brought them goblets of wine and Zorak motioned for the door. “Have Xeon come see us.”
“Aye, Your Majesty.” Then the page hurried out of the great hall.
“You’re still trying to prove Eloria is a high elf.”
“She knows the ancient symbols of the elves’ dead language. And she dreams of the green wizard. She knows magic. She is able to open the doors to the various places we believe the green wizard must have traveled to. Why would he give her this knowledge if she was not one of us? So yes, I think she’s a half high elf.”
“What happened with the dragonlings?” Zorak had been told there’d been a great fight between Viator, Balen, and Eloria and an opinicus in one of the dragon’s lairs. They’d killed the beast, protecting the dragonlings when the elves and Eloria weren’t even allowed to be there. And yet
Zorack's dragon companion had told him how glad he was that they’d come through the wizard’s tunnel and saved the young ones. So Zorak couldn’t find fault with Viator or the others.
“They needed protection,” Eloria said. “We were there to help them out.”
“Your wings are more transparent,” Zorak said to Viator. “Yours too, Balen.”
Viator smiled. “Yes. And it all has to do with Eloria and the green wizard.”
The jeweler entered the great hall and Zorak said, “Did you create the necklace Eloria is wearing?”
“Can she remove it so that I may have a closer look at it?”
“Yes,” Eloria said.
“No!” both Viator and Balen said.
“Sorry. When Lord Tal looked it over, her amulet called Talom,” Viator said.
“The rogue dragon,” Zorak said. "No one can tame him."
“Aye.”
“I can just look at It from here.” Xeon examined the necklace and smiled. “Aye, I created this amulet for the dragon keeper, Nesta. She saved a human, married him, and they had a baby. The human took the young girl away with him when the dragon keeper died.”
"That was my mother's name," Eloria said.
“So you didn’t make the amulet for Eloria.” Viator wrapped his arm around Eloria's shoulders.
“No. I made it for her mother.”
“Can you make another?” Eloria asked eagerly.
“Not without—”
She pulled the green crystal out of her pocket and it glowed, making the amulet she was wearing glow also.
Zorak just stared at the crystals.
“I can do it. Come with me to my workshop.” Xeon looked at Zorak to make sure it was all right with him.
“I’ll go with you.” Zorak was astounded at the sight of the glowing stones.
They soon reached the jeweler’s office and there they found coiled chains of gold and silver that looked like coiled rope sitting in neat stacks on long tables, and jewels of every kind resting on black velvet fabrics. But none of them were the color of the green crystals Eloria had from the wizard's cave.
“What kind of chain do you want to use?” Xeon asked.
“Silver,” Eloria said. “I didn’t realize it until now, but the amulet I saw in my dreams had a silver chain. It shown in the sunlight, unlike the rose-gold chain of this amulet.”
Xeon worked away at setting the stone in the chain, not cutting on it, but leaving the long, angular piece intact. Zorak was glad for that because it obviously had magical powers and he was afraid tampering with it could cause a drastic reaction.
When the jeweler was done, he marveled over his handiwork. Viator offered to pay for the work, but Zorak dismissed his offer. “It is a gift for helping to save our dragonlings when you are not even dragon keepers. A high honor. To be sure, you will always be welcome in the dragons’ lairs.”
“Thank you.” Instead of Eloria placing the silver chain over her head, she placed it over Viator’s.
His jaw dropped and Zorak and Balen were just as surprised.
Xeon nodded in approval. “As your mother offered her hand in friendship and marriage to your father through the same means, so you have done the same, formalizing your relationship with the prince. Many blessings upon you both.”
“Your parents won’t only want to disown you, they will want to banish me for not stopping this,” Balen said, shaking his head.
Eloria and Viator kissed.
“You mean everything to me, Eloria.” Viator turned to Zorak. “Thank you for witnessing this. I’m sure I’ll have a lot of explaining to do when I return home, but we appreciate your help in this.”
“If you need me to assist you in any of your quests, let me know. I know you’re supposed to accomplish them yourself, but sometimes a helping hand is needed.” Zorak glanced at Eloria and Balen, knowing the two of them were needed in the quest. In a way, he envied them and their adventures and would have eagerly joined them.
“We would appreciate that,” Eloria said, before Viator could respond, and Zorak was glad she seemed to harbor no ill-will against him.
Though the issue of Persephonice and her father was still worrisome.
“About Persephonice—” Zorak said.
“I can’t imagine that she wants to return to the ship, any more than I do. But if you’re concerned others will follow, you’re probably right. Maybe she and I can help to change their minds and get them to leave us alone,” Eloria said.
Zorak inclined his head to her.
Before they left, Viator paused. “You said the page leaves food for the wizard. Is the food ever…consumed?”
“For a while it had been. For the past couple of weeks, no. We thought somehow someone else had found a way into the chamber and was living there unbeknownst to us. But then he vanished. The page dutifully replaces food that has been spoiled with fresh food anyway, just in case the green wizard is truly not dead and does return.”
“Thanks again, Zorak,” Viator said. “We have more quests to do and then must eat and sleep and start over again tomorrow.”
“Return here for supper then,” Zorak said. “Eat and then sleep here where it’s safe.”
Eloria raised her brows slightly.
“I can’t apologize enough to you for locking you in the dungeon.”
She nodded. “I understand why.”
“You will have a comfortable bed. I can imagine if you stayed at the darkland elves' castle, Sendal may try to eliminate you. We’ll see you tonight then.” Zorak walked them through the castle to the courtyard where Viator was about to carry Eloria back to the memorial when three dragons alighted nearby.
“We will take you,” the one said to Eloria.
“Thank you.”
Zorak and all high elves understood the language of the dragons, and he realized that Eloria understand them too, just like Persephonice did, except Persephonice wasn't a high elf. “You can swim too, can’t you?”
Eloria nodded.
Amazing. Zorak realized then he'd lost out on the chance of having the red-haired human, well, and high elf, as his own.
Then Viator helped her onto a dragon. Even though her mother had been a dragon keeper, Eloria hadn’t been raised around them, once her father had taken her away from here. So she seemed apprehensive. But the dragon was patient with her and talked away, trying to calm her nervousness.
Then Viator climbed onto one of the dragons, and Balen, the other.
The winged elves normally didn’t ride on a dragon alone, not until they had tamed their own.
They said they’d return for supper and waved goodbye as Eloria told the dragons to return them to the wizard’s memorial.
Once they arrived at the memorial, Eloria thanked the dragons in their language and Viator and Balen thanked them in the elves' language. The dragons left them, and the three companions went into the memorial to find the next door they were to enter.
Once they reached the circle of doors, Eloria and Viator's crystals glowed in response to one of the symbols on the closest door. "The fishnet," Balen said.
When they went through the door, they were immediately standing on the shores of Neferon. The fishnet was no longer on the beach but on the rocks in the sea again. And a mermaid was frantically waving for help. The island of mists was gone.
"Okay, so we accomplished this mission before," Balen said. "Do you see anything wrong with this? You felt compelled to come here and remove the net before, so the mermaid wouldn't get caught up in it and drown. Now, with Eloria's clues, we have to do it all over again?"
"Like we did them out of order and have to do them in the right order?" Viator said. "That could be a problem because the river was poisoned, and we took care of that. Has Lars and his people poisoned it again?"
"I hope not. We might not get so lucky the next time to learn which poison they used," Balen said.
"It may not be so. The fishnet is again on the rocks and the mermaid is beseeching you to remove
it so she can safely reach her rocks," Eloria said. "So what do we do?"
"We are not going to do this again, are we?" Balen folded his arms and watched the mermaid as she pleaded with them to help her.
"I was thinking once was enough. Though I have to admit it's tempting to do it again, only to see if it helps to make our wings more transparent." Viator studied the mermaid. "She is not singing. How much do you want to bet that if we did this again, as soon as we were busy trying to remove the fishnet, she would try to call on Eloria?"
"I agree, sire."
"But if you can earn another half credit and I stuff cotton in my ears to keep her from enticing me into the sea with her siren's song, wouldn't it be worth it to at least give it a try?" Eloria asked.
"I agree," Viator said.
"You do want me to come with you, don't you?" Balen asked.
"Aye. I'd like you to protect Eloria also, but I believe we need to see if anything happens differently, now that we're going in the green wizard's order of events. Be sure you can plug your ears with the cotton before we leave, Eloria." Viator glanced back at her when she didn't say anything.
"What? I can't hear you." Eloria pointed at her ears.
He kissed her mouth. "All right, Balen. Let's go." Viator no longer cared as much about earning the credits to make his wings transparent. He wanted to learn more about what all this meant, regarding Eloria, the green wizard, and the crystals. When they flew out to the rocks, the mermaid was under the surface of the water, floating around, looking up at them, acting as though she only wanted them to remove the net from her home, nothing more. He knew better.
It was a different mermaid this time, her fish scales more pink and silver, her hair a strawberry blond. Viator wondered if the mermaids took turns soliciting the elves to help them with the deadly fishnet. This time as they flew closer to grab the net, watching the water and the mermaid, he and Balen worked together, tugging and struggling to pull the net free from the jagged rocks. They waved at each other when the water was about to splash them when a wave crashed into the rocks. But when the mermaid surfaced to grab Viator's ankle this time, his green amulet glowed. She looked shocked, her lips parted in surprise, and she quickly sank into the water and stayed there.