“I do not know exactly what I did for her, but she is at rest now. I cannot wake her though. She seems very far away,” Tamara said, concerned.
“Do you know who your attacker is?” Conrad asked.
“No. He came from nowhere. I did not think anyone else could survive down here, so I was careless,” she said, obviously annoyed with herself, while she dabbed her own forehead with the corner of her cape. “I am bleeding,” Tamara observed.
“Let me clean that,” Dalloway offered. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and carefully wiped the blood from her wound. Then he dampened it and wiped it again. “It is not serious. Just a surface abrasion. Does it hurt much?”
“No. Not really. I am more concerned about your companion than about myself. We will have to carry her if we cannot revive her soon. It is not safe to stay in this place,” Tamara warned.
“And the elf? What about him?” Dalloway asked. “Why did he attack you?”
“I have no idea. I suppose he wanted what I carry,” she said.
“Perhaps Caroline can tell us when she awakens,” Conrad said optimistically. “By the First, I hope that is soon!”
As if she heard him, she began to stir. The elf’s breath resumed a more relaxed pattern at the same time, though he remained motionless.
“We had best restrain him. We already know he is not a friend,” Dalloway said, as he and Conrad began to bind his ankles.
Before they could finish tying him securely, Caroline sat up with a start and shrieked. She continued screaming violently and thrashing about. Conrad and Dalloway rushed to her side. She sounded as if something was hurting her terribly. Tamara held her hand while she tried to soothe her anguish.
“Caroline? What is it? Talk to me? What can I do?” Conrad pleaded.
She was sobbing uncontrollably and gasping for breath. She was so disturbed that she could barely speak, though she was muttering something about the Dark Lord and murder. Caroline was wringing her hands wildly as if she wanted to wash them of some unspeakable filth that had dirtied them. Tamara placed her palms on either side of the distraught girl’s head and held it steady while Conrad continued to ask her questions. Dalloway too was leaning over her and searching for a way to ease her pain and fear. While they focused their attention on the maiden, Ruffin slowly opened his eyes. He reached for the ties that bound his feet and began to cut them as quietly as he could with a black dagger that was concealed in his filthy tunic. Once his feet were free, he adjusted the knife so that the hilt was in his fist and he was about to strike out at Dalloway whose back was nearest to him.
Tamara heard him move and she swung around, though she had no weapon ready with which to attack. She raised her hands defensively and leapt to protect Dalloway. He swung his head around an instant later and found himself staring directly into the deranged elf’s eyes. Dalloway too pulled his knife from its sheath, ready to strike.
“Mercy, brother, mercy,” Ruffin pleaded, while concealing his weapon in the folds of his shirt as he inched closer to Dalloway. “I hail from Seramour too,” he said in an overtly affable way.
Caroline broke free of her father’s arms, pulled her knife from its case and lunged at the renegade elf with an almost superhuman strength. Consumed with a fury the likes of which her father had never seen in her before, she pierced Ruffin’s heart with one fast blow followed by another and another until her father forcefully grabbed her from behind and hugged her tightly to him. She continued to strike out at the air in front of her, thrusting the knife in the direction of the fallen elf relentlessly, and sobbing all the while.
“Stop, Caroline. Stop. He is dead,” Conrad soothed her. The elf lay face down in a pool of dark red blood. “He is dead, my daughter. He cannot harm us anymore.” Finally, Caroline relaxed in her father’s arms, but she looked at him as if she barely recognized him. “It will be okay,” he said, while he brushed her hair back off of her forehead tenderly. “I promise. Everything will be okay.”
Dalloway went over to the elf, and with his foot he turned him over so that he was facing upward. His black eyes were wide open but lifeless, and as they all watched him closely now, dark shadows began to swirl around him. They buffeted him back and forth and practically lifted him off of the ground. Within a few moments, his body began to disintegrate as if it had been dead for tiels. Howls and screams could be heard in the distance, and they were quickly becoming louder with each passing moment. Soon, a pile of gray dust that began to slowly billow out from the empty and ragged clothing was all that remained.
“We must go! The lost ones approach! Though they cannot enter here, they have come to claim this elf’s soul for their own. Now that his body is gone, his spirit must join them. He has forsaken his other options,” Tamara insisted. “Hurry! Follow me,” she instructed, and she started to head for the archway that she was about to walk through when Caroline first appeared. Conrad and Dalloway assisted Caroline, and they moved as quickly as they could to catch up to Tamara. “Wait!” the sister implored. “I have forgotten something.” She rushed back into the room and headed for Mintar’s shattered trunk in the center of the floor. When she reached it she stopped and scanned the surface quickly. Then, she reached to the right, bent over and picked something up. Hastily, Tamara stuffed it inside her cape before returning to them. “Now we can go,” she announced when she caught up to the others once more. “I could not leave without the map.”
Chapter Forty-five
The air was as empty and lifeless as air could be. Alemar hated the thought of even breathing it into her lungs. She walked beside Teetoo with her arm inside the crook of his elbow. Clovis and Giles followed closely behind.
“Though my eyes tell me that this place is very beautiful, my senses tell me otherwise,” Alemar said.
“There is nothing beautiful here,” Teetoo proclaimed. “Sedahar is built upon deception, lies and illusion. It is ironic, is it not, that the one who wishes the world to end has chosen to surround himself with so much of what makes life unique? Art, sculpture and architectural masterpieces? Does this soothe his tortured soul, I wonder?”
“Maybe it reminds him of what could have been,” Clovis suggested.
“Why do you say this is all illusory?” Giles asked. “It looks real enough to me.”
“It was not built by the hands of man. Colton has created this place by other means, and it is not as it appears to be,” Teetoo insisted. “Pay no heed to what you see. He is a master at seduction, as you learned before.”
They wandered through a hallway of white stone walls and polished black floors that appeared to wind endlessly downward now, after having just ascended for what seemed like an interminable period of time prior to entering Sedahar. A mellow light illuminated everything, though its source was not evident. No blemishes marred the surfaces, no angles were askew, no fading of the color or variation in the pattern disturbed the continuity of the space, and this perfection alone distinguished what they saw from reality.
“Is there no one else here?” Giles asked.
“Let us hope not. He originally constructed this place for himself alone those countless tiels ago. He would not suffer another to share it with him. None are his equals here,” Teetoo explained.
“Sedahar was for Caeltin d’Are Agenathea a place to rival the one he could no longer tolerate according to the Tomes. He sought refuge here when he parted from the others. And to prove his defiance and contempt, he has built it and destroyed it himself more often than we could count,” Alemar related.
“For one who cares so little about life, he seems anything but indifferent to it,” Clovis said. “He does so much in reaction to it”
“And that is what torments him so. He cannot break free from the circle, and he cannot abide within it. In his isolation, he sees life and love more clearly, when all he desires is not to see it at all,” Teetoo said.
“And not to feel!” Alemar added.
“How could a living thing not feel?” Clovis asked. �
��Is that not a contradiction in terms?”
“Exactly, Clovis!” Teetoo said. “Exactly.”
They had come to the end of what had initially seemed like an endless corridor, and now they stood before an open doorway. Beyond, it was black as pitch. The light from the hallway that they were in did not extend into this space though it seemed as if it should. The darkness consumed the space ahead completely.
“Careful now,” Teetoo instructed them as he stepped into the shadows.
The others followed him through the portal and then it took a moment for their eyes to adjust once again. The blackness was so complete that they could not even see their own hands in front of their eyes. For a moment, it seemed almost as if they had lost their vision completely. Then Teetoo’s bracelet began to glow. At first, it looked like a bright star in an endless sky of nothingness. But soon its light illuminated the space around it enough so that they could see where they now stood. A long, winding path led into the distance. It was difficult to distinguish where the walls ended and the floor began. Everything here blended together in the darkness.
“The bracelet is leading us to him,” Teetoo said. “It grows brighter with each step.”
“I cannot tell if we are going up or down,” Giles said.
“Neither can I. But I have not been able to determine that since we left the hollows,” Clovis said.
“We have been descending, Clovis. But, nothing is as it seems here,” Teetoo reminded them. “Pay it no heed. All that matters is that we find Premoran.”
They walked and walked, and it was difficult for them to keep track of time. If not for the change in the bracelet’s intensity, they could not have determined if they had been making any progress at all. Everything seemed the same no matter how long and how far they traveled.
“Without something to guide you here, you could wander forever and never get anywhere,” Giles said.
“The fate of so many,” Teetoo replied.
“Shall I bring forth the light?” Alemar asked.
“No! It is of the trees. Its power could be sensed. We do not dare,” Teetoo stated.
“Are there no servants or squires or soldiers in this place?” Clovis asked.
“Fortunately for us, no. He is an untrusting soul. And an arrogant one! He sees not the need,” Teetoo said.
“When we find Premoran, how likely is it that he will be guarded?” Giles questioned.
“If he is not surrounded by evil demons, then he must be in a very secure prison. He would not just leave him alone, would he?” Clovis asked. “He needs to eat and to drink. Otherwise he would die.”
“Premoran has his own resources upon which he can draw for his survival. Besides, if Colton wanted him dead after he captured him, then he would be dead already. He is here and alive for a reason,” Teetoo replied.
“It is unlikely that he is guarded by anything other than Caeltin’s own devices. He seems not the type to trust such a job to another,” Alemar said.
“He trusts no one!” Teetoo confirmed.
“Then it is logical to assume that something magical binds him, something very powerful and very secure. The Dark One would not risk his brother’s escape,” the Princess continued.
“I agree, Alemar. And Premoran could not have anticipated what methods and means Colton would have used to keep him captive. I suspect that this bracelet will serve only to lead us to him. I doubt it will do more,” Teetoo responded.
“Then how are we to free him?” Giles asked.
“I do not know,” Teetoo answered simply.
They continued to walk down the path. It branched off in many directions, and they carefully observed the intensity of the bracelet’s light in order to determine which fork to take. Finally, another doorway appeared before them. Teetoo raised his wrist high in the air for them all to see and he signaled them simultaneously not to make a sound. The bead that hung upon the bracelet was glowing more intensely than ever before. He pointed to the door. Premoran was somewhere close behind it.
Alemar was standing next to Teetoo when the transformation began. She sensed it rather than saw it happening at first. From that point on, she watched awestruck, as if this was the first time she was witnessing it. She noticed his cape lying in a soft pile upon the ground behind him. Then, his back rounded and his arms elongated slightly. From the light of the bracelet, she could see a fine filament appear between the Weloh’s arms and the sides of his body. His neck stretched upward and the features of his face became sharper and more chiseled. His ears had virtually disappeared beneath his soft, feather-like hair, and he cocked his head to the side, leaned partway through the doorway and listened intently into the room in front of them.
“Stay behind the portal. Let me go first,” Teetoo said in a higher pitched voice than normal.
As he spoke, he turned to face her and she saw that his eyes were covered with an opaque covering that opened and closed quickly now as if he was trying to clear his vision, instead of his usual eyelids. He blinked so fast and so often that she wondered how he could see clearly. He reminded her suddenly of a hummingbird perched before a flower.
“The bracelet, Teetoo!” Alemar remembered. “It will give you away if someone or something is in there!”
“Thank you, Alemar,” he said, and he removed it from his now thin and bony wrist. It slipped easily over the slender, taloned fingers. “Keep it safe. We may yet require it.”
It was too small for her to slide over her hand, so she attached it to the same chain that the silver cocoon hung upon.
“After I am gone, count to five and then follow me. We may not be able to communicate for a while,” he said and then he disappeared without another word.
“That was incredible,” Giles said as soon as he was through the door. His jaw had dropped nearly to his chest.
“I never saw anything like it,” Clovis agreed.
“He is that last of his kind,” Alemar reiterated before taking her place guardedly by the doorway. “One, two, three, four, five!” she whispered, and then she too slipped through the passage while hugging the wall tightly.
Giles and Clovis followed closely behind her, though it was extremely difficult to see with the bracelet hidden beneath Alemar’s blouse. Once inside though, the room was not totally dark. Somewhere, a single, dim light burned, but they could not pinpoint its location. Though they could see its luminosity, they could not begin to determine how near or far from them it might have been. They walked in silence, and stepped as lightly as they could. There was not a sound to be heard. With their backs to the wall, they inched their way deeper into the chamber. As soon as their vision adjusted to the level of illumination, they scanned the room searching for any movement while they slowly made their way around the perimeter.
Alemar noticed something in the middle of the floor. It looked like a high backed chair, but she could see nothing else around it. The shadow that it cast caught her eye and it finally helped her to locate the light which caused it. On the opposite wall of the chamber, a small glowing orb hung suspended. Then, she saw something else. On the wall near where they were headed something was hanging. It could have been a decoration of some sort, though the room did not seem to be one that would have been ornamented. She squinted her eyes, but she was still too far away to see it clearly.
She could no longer tell if Clovis and Giles were still behind her and she was not going to call to them until she was certain that there was no one else in the room. So, she kept her back to the wall and made her way slowly but surely. She thought she heard a whooshing sound in the air high above her head, and she suspected that Teetoo was conducting his own reconnaissance. At least, she hoped that the sounds were coming from him! Alemar was walking with her arms outstretched in opposite directions in order to extend her reach as far as possible. She slid them along the wall, anticipating what she would do should her fingertips encounter anything other than rock.
While the others explored the surface, Teetoo circled the ch
amber after rising silently to the top of it. It was incredibly high, and for a moment he thought that it would never end. It must have reached right into Castle Sedahar itself, he surmised, as he attempted to calculate the distance from when he first took flight. There was no more light at the top than there was at the bottom. The ceiling was domed, and it appeared to be hewn from solid rock, though it was smooth and polished, unlike the dulled walls of a cavern. Colton’s handiwork was impressive in its scope, if nothing more.
The Weloh’s vision was quite keen; better than anyone could have suspected. Still, he was unable to pierce the shroud that blanketed the room. He was cautious in his flight and he had to rely upon his other senses in order to avoid hitting anything unexpectedly. Slowly, he made his way back down to the floor of the chamber, descending in broad circles.
As he neared the bottom, he smelled something odd. It was a human smell, though it was not a healthy one. He hovered over it briefly by stretching the tendons in his wings and bending them in such a way that the air held him aloft without any motion on his part. He virtually floated in the air. Since his eyes could still not locate anything or anyone, he honed in upon this odor. Teetoo dropped a little closer to the source, and then he listened carefully. He could hear something breathing about ten feet below him and he was certain that it was the steady breath of a person asleep or unconscious, not of one awake and aware. Carefully, he landed next to it. The unusual light that seemed to be suspended on the far wall did little to illuminate the body that he now stood beside.
Giles was determined to find Premoran. He saw little reason to follow right behind Alemar. If she were to encounter something, he would not be far away regardless. Besides, Clovis was certain to remain by her side no matter what. He wanted to tell them that he was going to go the other way, but he dared not risk speaking after they had already entered the room. So, he chanced leaving them, and he ventured off on his own. His weapons were securely belted to his side so that they would not rattle, and he had nothing more than a small dagger in his hand when he stepped slowly into the gloom. He headed for the oval of light on the far wall. Curiously, it did not illuminate even the area immediately surrounding it. Everything was pitch black, but it hung upon that wall, he could see it clearly, and he knew that someone must have placed it there for a reason.
The Shards Page 45