by Jasmine Walt
“I followed it for only a hundred paces or so. Once it twisted around the side of the mountain, I stopped following.”
Amia finally sat up, holding tightly onto Tan’s arm with her free hand. She stared at Tan, watching his face with her dark eyes. After a while, she turned from Tan and looked at Roine.
“There are wind elementals?” she asked.
Roine looked up, his eyes glazed with his fatigue and he shook his head to clear them.
Amia looked toward the mountain edge and shivered roughly before turning back to Roine. “We have met nymid and draasin on this journey. Water and fire.” She tilted her head as she looked at Roine and inhaled deeply. “There are wind and earth elementals?”
He nodded slowly as if finally understanding the line of her questioning. “There are,” he said. “But the fact that you’ve now seen two elementals is itself incredibly rare. Probably tied to the power of the lake, the place of convergence. And, I suspect, tied to the artifact.”
“What are the others?”
“The great elementals? They are udilm, ara, and golud. Water, wind, and earth. But they, like the draasin, have been gone for centuries. When they still spoke to man, it was their teaching that allowed some of the most skilled shapings to exist.”
“But the nymid are water elementals.”
Roine nodded. “The nymid have never disappeared, not really, and never to those who knew how to listen. They’re considered a part of the lesser elementals, more common and weaker than the great elementals. The lesser elementals have never been lost.”
Tan frowned. “The nymid seemed impressive to me.”
“If the draasin still live, does that mean that ara and golud still exist?” Amia asked.
Roine looked at her and frowned. “It’s possible. Though the greatest scholars on the elementals claim they are gone. Much research has gone into this topic, as you can imagine. If they still exist, why have they have broken off contact?”
“Have they?” Tan said. “Maybe we only stopped listening.”
Roine looked out over the lake and shrugged.
“Are all the great elementals as fearsome as the draasin?” Amia asked.
Roine shook his head. “Not from what I’ve read. They served as teachers, guiding the first shapers. The archives are full of accounts of early shapers guided by the elementals, taught the intricacies of their craft.”
“You wish you could have learned from them,” Amia commented, staring at him. Sensing him.
Roine frowned and she turned away. “There hasn’t been a warrior so trained in over five hundred years. That was the last time warriors were truly powerful.”
Tan looked at Roine with surprise. The man’s shaping and skill was impressive enough, but several times he had commented on the fact that the ancient warriors outstripped him in strength and skill. Tan began to wonder how much greater the ancient warriors truly were.
“What is the great elemental for spirit?” Amia asked.
Roine looked at her and shook his head as he answered. “No one has ever discovered an elemental for spirit. Greater or lesser.” He paused, holding Amia’s gaze. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Most of the archivists suspect they exist but have never been seen.”
“Perhaps they have and were made to forget,” she said.
Roine leaned back against the rock and startled them by laughing. “Years of study and you’ve offered the first argument that makes sense.”
As his laughter died, he fell silent.
Tan rested, holding Amia, and neither of them spoke. They sat on the edge of the trail, quiet, drifting in and out of sleep, as darkness crept overhead, passing into night, and on until daylight cracked once more. Tan was not sure how much he truly slept—it was fitful and full of dreams of soaring in the clouds and hunting—yet when he blinked his eyes open to the breaking day, he felt rested.
Roine waited, watching them. “We should be off,” he said quietly when he saw Tan waking.
“The lisincend?” Tan asked. He closed his eyes and searched outward. Within the rock, he felt nothing. There was no disturbance, no sense of the trees or insects, nothing of animals. Just solid stone.
Roine nodded. “They’re back there. Probably trying to figure out the rock. The climb should slow them more than it slowed us. Still, we should hurry.”
Tan woke Amia and she smiled at him sleepily before rubbing her eyes and stretching stiff muscles. “He let us rest.”
“I think we all needed it. Perhaps me most of all.” Roine waited until she stood. “Do we follow the trail?”
Amia closed her eyes briefly and nodded. “We are near.”
They started down the trail and Roine’s limp was less than it had been before. The trail wound around the mountain, presenting them with an amazing view of the trees and rocky slopes below them as it overlooked the lake. The ice that had been there had melted completely. They followed the trail as it twisted, slowly winding up the slope. The path narrowed and, at one point, split. One way led them down the slope of the mountain while the other continued upward. Amia pointed upward.
It was late in the day when the trail ended at a huge cavern in the mountain face. The rock was carved with symbols. Tan recognized many of them from Roine’s sword and others from the golden box he carried. Triangles with lines and squares interspersed with circles and carved figures. Words written in a foreign tongue arched over the opening. Around everything, Tan felt a shimmering energy. This was a place of power.
Amia looked into the cavern and pointed. “We must go in there,” she said.
The darkness loomed and Tan shivered.
Roine looked at the cavern as well; turning to Amia and seeing her confirmation, he nodded. “So we will.”
31
Key to the Artifact
Tan started toward the darkness of the cavern, but Roine grabbed him by the shoulder, holding him back. “This is warded against entrance,” Roine warned.
“Warded? What does that mean?” Tan asked.
Roine shook his head and frowned. “I don’t know what all of these runes mean,” he answered, looking at the carvings on the outer wall, “but I sense the warding. And it is powerful, unlike anything I’ve ever encountered.”
Roine released Tan’s shoulder and Tan stepped away from the entrance, staring at the carvings. He became aware of a low, sizzling energy hanging over the cavern, the rock, everything, and sensed a warning within. “What will happen if you can’t remove the warding?”
“Then we can’t enter,” Roine answered. “Not safely, at least. I don’t know what the warding will do. I sense a protective barrier, but it might be a defensive shaping as well.” He stared at the markings, as if doing so would provide answers.
Roine paced outside the entrance to the cave, eyes locked on the lettering, his face pulled tight as he considered. “There is usually some type of key,” he said, muttering mostly to himself, “but I see nothing in these writings that indicates what it might be.”
“What kind of key?” Tan asked.
“For something like this,” Roine answered, motioning at the cave, “it should be written on the stone. The method to safely bring down the warding. There is nothing. Of what I can read, there is only a warning.”
Amia looked up at the writing, tilted her head, and frowned, but said nothing.
Roine continued pacing, his face drawn in concentration. He scrubbed occasionally at his hair in annoyance. He paused to finger the runes upon the stone, shaking his head as he did, and stepped back to reexamine the writings. At one point, he tossed his bulging pack to the ground near Tan’s feet where it clinked.
Tan hadn’t really paid much attention to the pack since Roine had returned. He toed it open and the gleaming metal box reflected the early morning light.
Amia knelt next to the box and pulled it out from within the pack. She stared at the inscriptions on the surface, then looked up and stared at the writing upon the stone. Her fingers ran over the carvings on the box until re
aching a position only she could feel, and then she pressed.
There came a small snick as a lock released and the lid of the box opened.
Amia looked over to Tan, a small smile to her face, and turned back to the box. Roine paced, ignoring them. The interior of the box gleamed just as brightly as the outside did. Carvings were worked on its surface as well.
Tan felt a soft building pressure, the steady pressure of a shaping, realizing that Amia tried shaping something on the golden box. She pressed something else, and suddenly the five-sided box fell apart, lying flat upon the rocky ground with a loud snap.
Roine turned at the sound. He stared down at her with a look of shock. “What did you do? Why would you damage this?”
“Roine!” Amia said. The words surged with energy of a shaping.
He took a quick step back and away from Amia, eyeing her cautiously. “Do not shape me,” he warned, his voice soft and his gaze fixed unblinkingly upon her. “I may not have the strength of the lisincend to defy you, but I warn you. Do not shape me.”
“You need to learn how to remain calm.” The words carried a soft energy and Tan knew she still shaped him. She smiled and Roine blinked slowly as he took a deep breath. “The box is unharmed. There was a switch inside that, when triggered, opened it like this.” She flipped the box sides back up, locking them in place, to demonstrate.
Roine knelt before the golden box. “How did you open the lid?”
Amia shrugged. “There is a switch there, as well.”
“Few have ever learned how to open the box,” he began. “And none have ever realized there was another switch. How did you know?”
“I felt it,” she said simply.
Roine shook his head as if clearing it. “Felt it? Or sensed it?”
“Are they not the same?” she asked.
“Not to me.”
Amia just smiled. “You see the inside is marked much like the outside?”
“The outside of the box doesn’t have much meaning, only symbols and runes for the elementals,” he said, not elaborating. “That’s why when you shaped the box you were able to detect a trail. The markings on the inside have never been clear.”
Amia ran her hands across the inner surface of the box and it snapped open, lying flat once more. “Try again.”
Roine looked at the sides of the box, turning it so that the longest side was first. “Great Mother,” he swore. He looked to Amia and narrowed his eyes. “How did you know?”
She laughed. “I can read.”
“This language is long dead!”
“Not to the Aeta,” she said.
Roine nodded slowly and stood, holding the opened box carefully in his palms, and walked toward the cavern opening. Standing before it, holding the box in his hands, he looked at Amia again. “Then I’ll need your help. Wait until I tell you, then send a shaping into the box.”
Roine turned his attention upon the now flattened box. From the building pressure, he knew this to be a powerful shaping. Roine nodded to Amia. Energy built, this time from Amia.
And then a burst of stale air blew out at them.
Roine staggered back. Tan grabbed him before he could fall and lowered him to the ground. They let Roine sit while Amia snapped the sides of the small golden box back and closed the lid.
“What happened?” he asked.
Roine looked at the cave. “The box was more than a compass. It was also the key to the wardings. There was a shaping that could only be triggered by another shaper.” He paused, looking to Amia. “Shapers.”
Amia didn’t look as spent as Roine, though her eyelids sagged a bit more than usual.
“How’d you know?” Tan asked.
“This writing is still taught to my people. There is the warning Roine mentions,” she said, staring up at the writing overhead, “but there is also instruction interspersed. The warning is only for those who don’t carry the golden key.”
Roine looked at her again and shook his head. “It’s fortunate you’re with us. I don’t think I could’ve taken down these wards alone.” He shook his head again. “The ancient shapers…”
Roine slowly stood and walked toward the entrance to the cavern. There he hesitated, taking a deep breath before stepping into the darkness. Nothing happened.
Roine let out a pent-up breath and motioned for them to follow.
Amia grabbed Tan’s hand and they followed Roine into the cavern. The path widened, hollowed into the hard stone of the mountain, and the walls, at least where still lit by daylight, were unnaturally smooth.
“Was this whole cave shaped?” Tan asked.
“I think so.” He whistled softly. “Great Mother. I can’t imagine the strength required to do this.”
Soon daylight no longer reached far enough to light their way. He squeezed Amia’s hand harder than he intended. She squeezed back, equally nervous.
“How will we see our way?”
“Watch,” Roine said, somewhere in front of them.
Light bloomed all around them in small orbs attached to the wall. They were spaced regularly, like lanterns, and illuminated the cave as it stretched into the rock.
Tan walked over to one of the orbs, expecting heat, but there was none, only light. “How’d you know how to light these?”
Amia stared at the orbs in wonder.
“There are lamps like this in Ethea. And they’re incredibly valuable. They were created by shapers long ago but their design has been lost. What few remain are owned by the greatest shapers.” Roine smiled. “I saw one as we entered. I hadn’t expected so many.”
“How are they lit?” Tan asked.
“Any shaper can light these lamps.”
“Any?” Amia looked away from the orbs on the wall and turned to Roine.
He laughed and nodded. “Any.”
Amia focused on the nearest orb and it went out. She gasped before the light quickly came back on. “Amazing.”
“We need to keep moving. I’ve no idea the length of this cave. Or where it takes us. But the entrance is no longer warded and I’d like to be away before the lisincend trap us here.”
They walked quickly, Roine lighting the orbs as they moved through the cave, letting those behind dim after they passed. Roine’s limp was more pronounced again. How much had the shaping to bring down the wardings cost him? Worse, in order to survive, they might need Roine to become Theondar.
The walls began to open and the ceiling overhead crept farther and farther away until no longer visible, lost in the shadows beyond the edge of the glowing lamps. A faint light glowed in the distance, brighter with every step. Soon the spacing of the lamps along the walls became greater and greater until they disappeared altogether.
Had they walked all the way through the mountain only to emerge on the other side?
But as they reached the light, he saw that it diffused from high overhead. A huge crack in the ceiling of the cave revealed light from the outside.
Thick, dark vines seemed to grow out of the stone and covered the walls of the cave. Tan thought at first that he might be seeing carvings along the wall, out of the stone itself, made to look like vines. Huge leaves sprouted from the vines and the occasional fragrant pale white flower grew on them. As they moved deeper into the cave, the walls progressively widened, opening into a huge cavern.
The vines twisted together, turning into something greater. Small bushes sprouted from the walls, stretching toward the light coming through the split in the rock overhead, reaching tendrils and leaves toward the light. With each step, the vegetation seemed denser, and soon the bushes turned to trees punching up from the rock as they grew toward the light overhead.
Purple and red fruits hung along the branches of the trees. Tan reached toward one, but Roine stopped him.
“Remember,” he warned, “this cave, everything you see here, has been shaped to appear like this. These fruits, these trees,” he said, motioning with his free arm, “may appear succulent, but I’d advise caution.”<
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The ground itself now had a thin layer of fragrant grass and Tan could swear he heard the rush of wind and the soft burbling of a stream. The air around him was warm and comfortable, like a late spring day, and he felt at peace.
“How can all of this be shaped?”
“I keep telling you the ancient shapers were much more skilled than today. Many learned what they knew from the elementals themselves. A very different education than what I had at the university. I sense the underlying shaping and know this has all been artificially generated and is sustained. Great power was spent creating this.”
Roine led them more carefully, looking from side to side as he moved deeper into the cave. Trees and bushes sprouted from the ground of the cavern as well, growing tall and high, stretching up toward the rock overhead. They blocked the light filtering down as they moved further into the cavern. Tan thought he heard the sound of birds chirping among the trees, but decided that must be imagined.
Roine turned to Amia. “Which way?”
She closed her eyes. “It’s hard to tell. Everything feels different here. I think—there.” She pointed left, off their current path.
Roine allowed Amia to lead and she moved carefully along the soft greenery of the cavern floor. If Tan hadn’t known better, he would have imagined they were in a warm forest, though none of the trees looked familiar. Neither did the flowering plants erupting along their path. The vegetation had the air of familiarity to it, but the trees, the flowers, and even the grass growing under his feet were unlike anything he had ever known. A soft sensation, almost an itch, beat at the edge of his consciousness. It took a while to realize that he sensed the strangeness around him.
Amia led them toward the soft burbling sound. As they approached, the towering trees stopped, opening into a clearing within the cavern. At the center of the clearing was a circular pool of silvery water, bubbling softly. An object hovered in the middle of the pool of liquid, suspended above it.
With absolute certainty, he knew they’d found it. “This is it.” He started toward it.
Roine restrained him and pointed toward a huge stone pillar rising from the ground. Deep etchings marked its perimeter, carvings and runes similar to those on the cave entrance. A suppressed energy emanated from the pillar.