The Elven

by Bernhard Hennen

  “What has gotten into you?” Farodin snapped at him.

  “It was just something to say . . .”

  “I’m talking about what happened at the horse market. Are you so sick of living? We had an agreement. You do nothing that might attract attention, remember?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Damn right,” said Farodin in an icy tone. “I can’t understand. What you did was pointless. Do you think you saved the life of the man in the cage? No. His agony will just last an extra day or two, that’s all. I simply don’t understand you.”

  Mandred did not reply. What was he supposed to say? The two elves could never understand it. How were they supposed to? What he’d done was idiotic; he was well aware of that. When it came down to it, it helped nobody. And yet he would do it again.

  Gritting his teeth, he followed the elves. They clambered over piles of rubble, waded through flooded tunnels, and felt their way through subterranean halls, their ceilings propped up with pillars, their walls painted with hideous demons. Again and again, they stumbled across images of Balbar, flames spewing from his maw.

  It was mostly Nuramon who took the lead down there. Apparently, he was the more talented when it came to following the Albenpaths. For Mandred, though, paths that could not be seen were just eerie. No doubt there were other secret markings down there that showed which way to go. But the moment you tried to follow the Albenpaths, again and again you ended up facing a wall or a collapsed tunnel. Like now. They found themselves in a narrow chamber with walls of dark-red sandstone. On the wall opposite was a round entrance stone, an entry to a burial vault, that reminded Mandred of a millstone. Two wavy lines had been chiseled across the center of the stone.

  “It goes on that way,” said Nuramon with certainty, pointing at the stone. The two elves turned and looked at Mandred.

  Of course. If it takes brute force to solve a problem, then I’m good enough for them, thought Mandred peevishly. He put down his lantern and stepped up to the entrance stone. It was set into grooves in the floor and ceiling to prevent it from falling.

  Mandred pushed with all his strength and was surprised at how easily the stone could be rolled aside. An intense odor of dust, spices, and incense hit them.

  Mandred exhaled deeply. He knew the smell. It was the smell of the sepulchers beneath the city . . . down where some form of magic stopped the bodies of the dead from rotting and they dehydrated instead. Graves like this frightened Mandred. When the dead did not rot as they ought, then perhaps they also did other things that the dead should not.

  Without hesitation, the two elves entered the chamber. They held their lanterns high, lighting up the tomb. It was three paces wide, perhaps five deep. Long recesses had been carved into the walls, and the dead lay inside them as if on stone beds.

  Mandred’s stomach tightened as he looked around. The faces of the dead were brown and sunken, their lips pulled far back so that it looked as if they were grinning. Mandred glanced back toward the stone at the entrance. He would not have been surprised to see it roll back into place, as if pushed by some ghostly hand, and for the dead to rise the moment they were sealed inside. He eyed the corpses furtively. No doubt about it, they were grinning at him with malice. From the look of things, they had every reason to be in a bad mood. Someone else had been in this crypt before Mandred and his companions. The shrouds of the dead were in tatters. One of them had even had a hand torn off. Grave robbers.

  This seemed not to concern the elves in the slightest. They shone their lanterns into the recesses and searched for secret doors, even though they most likely had hit another dead end.

  Mandred uttered a silent prayer to Luth. One of the dead moved its head. The jarl hadn’t actually seen it move, but he was certain the corpse had been facing the door moments before and not looking at him.

  Cautiously, he backed away a short distance. The wall opposite the door seemed the safest place. There were no grave recesses there, and the stones seemed weathered. Something had been scratched into one of them, a circle with two wavy lines. “Shouldn’t we get out of here?”

  “Soon,” Nuramon replied, bending over the dead man that was staring at Mandred. Did his companion really notice nothing?

  “Careful.” Mandred pulled him back.

  Nuramon pulled free of Mandred’s grasp. “The dead can’t hurt anybody. Control your fear,” he said. He spoke to Mandred as he would to a child, then he leaned into the recess again, even taking hold of the body to push it aside a little. “There’s something here.”

  Mandred felt as if his heart were about to jump from his chest. The things they were doing. You never tamper with the dead.

  “There’s less dust here, and a hidden lever . . . ,” Nuramon said.

  A soft creaking sounded from the entrance to the sepulcher. Mandred leaped for the entrance, just a few paces away, but he was already too late. The round stone had rolled back in front of the entrance. In blind panic, he dropped the lantern; the glass shattered on the stone floor. The warrior had his axe in his hand. He knew that the dead would rise up at any moment. Slowly, looking left and right protectively, he moved backward. The elves did nothing. In their arrogance, they must have thought him crazy, though they were obviously keeping well clear of his axe. Did they not comprehend the danger they were in?

  Mandred retreated farther. Only when he again stood with his back to the blank wall would he feel halfway certain that nothing could take him by surprise.

  Nuramon cautiously raised one hand. “Mandred . . .”

  The jarl took another step back. Around him, everything blurred, like a reflection in water when a stone is tossed in. The light from the elves’ lanterns dimmed. Something under Mandred’s feet cracked and broke. The room seemed to grow larger. Where was the wall? Why hadn’t he bumped against it yet? The elves were staring like cows.

  Mandred glanced at the floor. Bones, he saw. And gold. Armbands, rings, pressed metal ornaments of the kind sewn onto festive clothing. But there had been no bones and no gold a moment earlier. What was going on here?

  Suddenly, the floor began to shake. Something was coming toward him. Mandred turned and saw Balbar, the god of the city. He was a giant, as tall as two men, maybe taller. The square-cut beard, the face a mask of rage—there could be no doubt, it was truly the god of the city. A god made entirely of stone.

  Mandred raised his axe. Nothing around him made sense anymore. He was standing in a high-ceilinged tunnel now, dimly lit by barinstones.

  Balbar’s right hand shot out. Mandred was hauled into the air. He thrashed with his hands and feet, as helpless as a child. Balbar’s left hand closed around Mandred’s neck and his right held Mandred’s feet. The god of Iskendria bent him like a willow branch. The jarl screamed. It felt like his muscles were being torn from his bones. He fought Balbar’s stony grip with all his strength. The stone colossus seemed set to snap his spine like a twig and overcame all of Mandred’s resistance effortlessly.

  “Liuvar!” yelled Farodin.

  The god instantly froze.

  Farodin shouted something else that Mandred did not understand, and the god set Mandred down on the floor. Groaning, he crawled off to the nearest wall. All around lay shattered bones. The other intruders had been less lucky than he.

  “A gallabaal. Practically none of the Albenkin have ever seen one. A stone guard. Great magic is needed to create such a being.”

  Mandred rubbed at his aching back. He for one would have been happy never to have laid eyes on the thing. “Naida’s tits, how did you stop it?”

  “That was no skill. It was enough to say the elven word for peace. Are you all right?” Farodin asked.

  Stupid question, thought Mandred. With a deep sigh, he pushed himself to his feet. He felt as if a herd of horses had stampeded over the top of him. “Never felt better.” He eyed the stone giant doubtfully. “And tha
t thing is out of action?”

  “It will wake again when the next stranger enters.”

  Mandred spat on the statue’s feet. “You miserable hunk of rock. Count yourself lucky you took me by surprise.” The jarl slapped the flat of his axe on the palm of his hand. “I would have chopped you into cobblestones.”

  With a jerk, the giant returned to life.

  “Liuvar!” Farodin shouted again. “Liuvar.”

  Then Nuramon appeared. “Masterful sorcery. A perfect illusion. You have to actually touch the wall at the back of the tomb to notice it at all, it looks so real. It’s like what the elves of Valemas did to hide the border to nothingness. Really—” Nuramon stopped in his tracks when he saw the stone guard. He looked it over appreciatively. “A gallabaal. I’d always thought such stone guards were just fanciful.” Without giving it another glance, he pointed down the hallway. “Down there we’ll find a major Albenstar. I sense its power.”

  Their path led them along a high tunnel with a dull light glowing at the far end. It was unmistakable that these rooms had not been fashioned by human hands. The masonry here was seamless. The only decoration on the walls was a floral pattern, its colors as bright as if the artist had only just completed his work.

  Finally, they entered a wide, perfectly round domed hall. Dimly glowing barinstones had been cemented into the walls, bathing the room in an even light that allowed no shadows. The floor was a mosaic, a black circle on a white field, and in the center of the circle were two golden, snaking lines, like the ones he’d noticed earlier. Mandred smiled quietly to himself, but did not crow about his triumph. There had been signs pointing the way here after all. He had not been mistaken. And he knew that the two elves, just then, also realized that he had understood the nature of this labyrinth better than they had.

  “Six paths cross here,” said Nuramon matter-of-factly. “It is almost a major Albenstar. I’m certain this will lead us to the library.” The elf stepped into the middle of the circle, between the wavy lines. He kneeled and touched the floor with the palm of his hand. Focusing, he closed his eyes and became motionless.

  It seemed an eternity to Mandred before the elf looked up again. His forehead was beaded with sweat. “There are two special lines of force,” he said. “I don’t know which of them I have to use to open the gate. I don’t understand it. This gate is somehow . . . different. The sixth line . . . it feels somehow younger. As if someone has drawn a new line of force.”

  “Then it has to be the older one that opens the gate,” Farodin said calmly. “What’s so hard about that?”

  “It’s . . .” Nuramon ran his tongue over his lips. “There’s something there that the faun oak did not tell us about. The new line seems to be affecting the older structure of the Albenstar. The patterns are distorted . . . or maybe it would be better to say that they have been shifted into a different harmony.”

  Mandred understood nothing of what they were saying. They should just do something, he thought.

  Now both elves were crouching in the circle and pressing their hands to the floor. It looked like they were feeling the pulse of something invisible. Or did the world itself perhaps have a pulse? Mandred shook his head. What a nonsensical thought. How could rock and earth have a pulse? Now he was starting to think like these crazy elves. Maybe it would be enough to whack a hole in the floor with his axe, and they could climb down into the Shattered World.

  Radiant as polished gold, a gate opened. It looked like a flat disk of light. It stood in the center of the circle and stretched from the floor to just beneath the cupola of the ceiling. Mandred took a few steps to one side. From there, the disk looked as thin as a hair.

  “Let’s go,” said Farodin. His voice was strained. But before Mandred could ask him what was worrying him, the elf had disappeared into the golden light.

  “Something wrong?” Mandred turned to Nuramon.

  “It’s the new line of force. It supports the gate spell, but it also changes it, and we can’t tell whether it is simply strengthening it or somehow manipulating it. Maybe you should stay here. Honestly, we are not sure at all that this gate leads to the library.”

  Mandred thought of the temple guards and the punishment Iskendria meted out to those who broke its laws. He would rather disappear into an unknown world with perhaps no chance of coming back than be chained up in the horse market for the stray dogs to eat, his arms and legs smashed.

  “It goes against my grain to abandon my friends,” he said solemnly. It sounded better than talking about the dogs.

  Nuramon seemed abashed. “Sometimes I feel as if we are not worthy to ride with you,” he said quietly. Then he reached out his hand to Mandred, as he once had years before, in the ice cave.

  The jarl was not easy with the idea of holding hands with another man, but he knew it meant a great deal to Nuramon. Together, they stepped through the gate.

  Mandred felt an icy draft against his cheeks. The gate opened above an abyss. He instinctively stepped back and gripped Nuramon’s hand tighter. Beside them, Farodin floated in nothingness.

  “Glass,” the elf said calmly. “We’re standing on a thick sheet of glass.”

  Mandred let go of Nuramon’s hand. He bit his lip, annoyed at himself. Of course. He could feel that he was standing on something, but there was nothing beneath his feet to actually see. How was it possible to produce glass so ingeniously that it stayed invisible, yet could carry the weight of a human and two elves?

  They were standing above a wide circular shaft that faded into a somber light in the distance beneath them. Mandred guessed it was at least a hundred paces deep. There was something fearsome about looking down into the immense pit, so much so that he was close to grasping Nuramon’s hand again. What kind of madman would dream up something like this? To stand over a chasm as if you were floating.

  This place reminded Mandred of the inside of an enormous circular tower, except that the mad builder had forgotten to put in any floors. Around the inner wall, a ramp spiraled gently down into the depths. Down below, it looked as if the walls drew closer together. Mandred was ashamed of his fear of this abyss. On stiff legs, he fixed his gaze on the wall and marched across the glass plate. Just don’t look down, he thought the whole time, hoping that his companions hadn’t noticed anything. He let out a sigh of relief when he reached the ramp and there was something beneath his feet he could not see through. He leaned against the wall and looked up to the domed ceiling that stretched above their heads. It showed a black circle cut by two wavy lines. This time, Mandred felt no triumph.

  In silence, he and his companions made their way down the ramp. It was unnervingly narrow, and Mandred stayed close to the wall. There wasn’t even a railing to hang on to. Did the Albenkin have no fear of heights at all? No fear of the unsettling wish to simply let oneself tumble into the chasm, as if summoned from below by a voice whose temptations you could scarcely resist?

  Trying not to think about the abyss, Mandred looked at the pictures that decorated the wall on his left. They showed figures girdled by gleaming light, striding through forests or crossing wind-tossed waters in slim boats. The pictures told a story without words, and looking at them calmed Mandred’s churning thoughts. But then the harmony of the images was broken. Other figures appeared, creatures that looked like humans but for the animal heads atop their shoulders.

  Suddenly, the two elves stopped short. The unknown artist had painted the manboar. It had been defeated by one of the figures of light, its foot on the beast’s neck. The monster was painted as truly as if the scene had occurred before the artist’s own eyes. Even the blue of its eyes was accurate. But the figure of light had no face. The section of plaster where the face had been was broken away. Until then, Mandred had seen no damage anywhere to the murals on the wall. Time had passed by these works of art without leaving its mark.

  The jarl felt the fine hairs on his neck rise. S
omething was not right here. Why had they encountered no one? If this was the library, why were there no books? And why did the only damage visible on any of the paintings erase the face of the warrior who had once defeated the manboar? Could it really just be a coincidence?

  Farodin’s right hand rested on the pommel of his sword. He looked ahead down the spiraling ramp.

  “There’s a portal down there,” said the elf quietly. “We would do well to be as silent as possible.” He looked at Mandred. “Who knows what’s waiting for us here.”

  “So are we in the library you’ve been looking for?”

  Farodin shrugged and went ahead. “Wherever we are, we’re no longer in your world, mortal.”

  As quietly as he could, Mandred followed the elves. It took quite a long time for them to reach the portal.

  The murals now depicted bloody battles between the figures of light and the men and women with animal heads. The manboar’s likeness did not appear again. Whatever its fate, it played no role in the later battles.

  The portal at the end of the spiral path was more than four paces high. Beyond it lay a long, narrow corridor, its walls clad in polished granite. It had to be at least twenty paces up to the ceiling. Strange rungs had been attached up there, as if one were supposed to swing along beneath the ceiling. Large barinstones glowed between these rungs at regular distances. The walls themselves were completely covered with columns of tiny characters. Who could read something like that? Mandred tilted his head back. And how could anyone read what was written higher up?