The Elven

by Bernhard Hennen

  Wengalf exchanged a look with Thorwis, which the old man took as a sign that he should talk to Nuramon. “We know the oracle of Dareen. In the days when we abandoned Albenmark, other Albenkin also left to find their place in this world. One day, dwarves and elves met, and together, they discovered Dareen beyond a gate that led to a distant part of this world. It was she who told us how to seal the portal. In olden days, we used the gate often. But the elves withdrew. Some hid themselves in enchanted forests, others built their own realm in the Shattered World. But most of them simply went back to Albenmark. We were not able to open the gate alone. And neither the need nor the curiosity were ever so great that we had to avail ourselves of the oracle.”

  Nuramon’s thoughts turned to Yulivee. She must have been one of the elves who had encountered the dwarves so long ago. “Would a dwarf be willing to accompany me?” he asked hopefully.

  “A dwarf will stand by an elf, just as an elf once stood by the dwarves,” said Wengalf solemnly.

  Nuramon did not know what the dwarf king meant by that. Perhaps he was alluding to the times when the dwarves still lived in Albenmark and had forged alliances with the elves.

  “You don’t remember,” said the king.

  “No. I am too young. I was not there to see elves and dwarves living side by side in Albenmark.”

  “But you have hardly changed. I still recognize you. Thorwis knew it was you the moment he saw you. How many years has it been? At least three thousand . . .”

  Instantly, Nuramon realized what the dwarf was talking about. “You must have me confused with one of my earlier incarnations.”

  “No, we mean you,” said Thorwis. “I recognized you. You are Nuramon. There is no doubt at all.”

  “We once called each other friend,” the king added.

  Nuramon could not believe it. He had come to a place where they remembered him from an earlier life and were prepared to talk about him. And the dwarf king had once looked upon his earlier incarnation as a friend.

  “It was in the days before I became king, when I was still waiting for the title. We cultivated a friendship then. You left Albenmark at our side. Our race, with you, endured a long and difficult search before we found this place. We hunted, fought, and celebrated together. And together, we found death.”

  “I died here?” Nuramon asked.

  Wengalf pointed out into the valley. “Out there, hundreds of dwarves fought Balon, the dragon. But only we two defeated it, and we paid for that victory with our lives. You died on the battlefield, and I a few days later. I was crowned king on my deathbed.”

  Nuramon could hardly believe what he was hearing. Wengalf actually believed he was the same elf as his friend back then. More than this, he had the feeling that he was listening to a legend, but one that he could not remember ever having heard before.

  “I still remember how you died. We were both lying out there, in the hot blood of the dragon. You said, ‘This is not the end. I will return.’ Those were your last words. How long have I been hoping for this day? I have to admit that the time grew so long that I rarely thought about it anymore, though I always did on the commemoration day. I pictured to myself how your soul was reborn somewhere, but you had no memory of what you had once done. In the end, so much time went by that I thought you must have passed into the silverlight long ago. But I was wrong.”

  Nuramon went down on his knees to bring himself to the same level as Wengalf. “I wish that I had inherited the memory of my earlier lives along with the soul. But that was not the case. What you are telling me is another man’s story. I cannot look at those events as part of me.”

  Thorwis joined them now. “Why not? If you sleep and wake up again, aren’t you the same man? And if you’re the same man, how do you know it?”

  “I know it because I remember what was there before I slept,” Nuramon replied.

  Thorwis laid one hand on his shoulder. “Then think of the things you find out about your earlier selves and your soul’s memories as something you have only forgotten. Who knows? One day, the memory of your soul may also become that of your living spirit.”

  “You mean I might one day remember fighting the dragon? And remember my friendship with Wengalf?”

  “I can neither promise it nor give you any hope. I can only say that it has already happened. There are Albenkin who remember their earlier souls. Most who do are dwarves. Maybe you, too, will one day discover the path to your past life. You are no stranger to magic, and your senses are very keen. The first step along this path is to recognize that the Nuramon who once sacrificed himself and the Nuramon kneeling before us now are one and the same.”

  “I thank you, Thorwis, for your counsel. And you, Wengalf . . . thank you for what you have told me. Would you allow me a question?”

  “Ask it,” said the king.

  “Do you know an elf named Yulivee?”

  Wengalf and Thorwis exchanged a look of surprise. “Certainly,” the king replied. “But it was a long time ago. Side by side, we set a quartz crystal and a diamond in the gate that leads to Dareen so that elves and dwarves could only find the way to the oracle together.”

  “Did I meet her in my earlier life?”

  “No. At that time, you were following your own roads. You only returned later on.”

  “Thank you, Wengalf. And you, too, Thorwis. You cannot imagine how much your words mean to me. I will do as you say. I will take the stories of my earlier life and make them my memories.”

  Wengalf grinned and clapped the kneeling Nuramon solidly on the shoulder. “Then I’d better tell you quickly about the feasts so you can remember what we drank and ate back then. You could handle your fair share. Come. Let us celebrate as we did in the old days.” And the dwarf king embraced him.

  The Final Path

  Farodin tore the knife out of the troll’s eye. He wiped the blade clean on the dead troll’s coarse woolen cloak and slipped it back into the sheath buckled around his left forearm. Then he took hold of the troll by the shoulders. With his muscles tensed to their breaking point, he dragged the troll slowly, inch by inch, to the edge of the pier and let the body slide into the dark water.

  “May you wait a long time before you’re born again,” he hissed. Then he moved a short way back along the pier. He tried to remember what it had looked like here the last time. The mooring was newly paved and extended. He hoped they had not changed much more than that.

  Full of contempt, he looked up to the huge, black ships. They had not the slightest trace of elegance. They were simply hulks. The bow and stern looked as if someone wanted to build siege towers, not parts of a ship. They loomed menacingly over the water. Which enemy were the trolls planning to fight with such ships?

  High above him, inside the Nightcrags, a hundred voices grunted in laughter. Had Mandred managed to hold out? Or was the mortal long dead?

  His plan was simply not thought through. To imagine that nothing would have changed here in all these centuries. Of the hidden entrances to the labyrinth of secret corridors that riddled the rocks and the tower, Farodin had already discovered three sealed with bricks. And it was old brickwork. Even the trolls had figured out where he had come from when he had murdered their leader so long ago. And now the pier had been refurbished as well.

  With no great hope, he descended a set of stairs to the water. He took off his cape, rolled it, and tied it around his waist like a sash. It would be less of a hindrance like that. Careful not to make any sound that would give him away, he eased himself into the chill embrace of the water. He had to stay completely focused on making sure his clothes did not become saturated and drag him down.

  He did not have much time for his search. It wouldn’t be long before the cold paralyzed him, despite all the magic keeping it at bay. He felt his way along the wall some distance, then dived. After a few strokes, he found what he was looking for: a dark opening in
the stone pier. The trolls had forgotten about this one, apparently. Perhaps they had never even known it existed.

  A flooded tunnel led from the harbor to a grotto that lay deep beneath the tower. From the grotto, there were several paths he could take that connected with the labyrinth concealed in the walls of the tower. It was said that the Nightcrags had been built by kobolds who had been enslaved by the trolls. As in Emerelle’s palace, they had built hundreds of secret passages through which they could move, well away from their masters’ prying eyes. These tunnels were just high enough that Farodin could move along them if he ducked. But a troll would never fit inside. The perfect hiding place.

  The elf was chilled to the bone when he reached the white grotto. He did not know what the kobolds had called the place in the past. Farodin himself had dubbed it the white grotto in the hours he had spent waiting there. The ceiling and walls were covered in snow-white limestone deposits. Long stalactites hung from overhead. In several places, barinstones had been set into the rock, and they gave off a warm, golden light centuries after the secret builders were gone.

  Farodin peeled off his clothes and dried them using the magic that he otherwise used to protect himself from the cold. His wide belt and the leather bracers with the throwing knives were well oiled, and the water had not affected them.

  Centuries of experience had taught Farodin that heavy throwing knives were the best weapon in battles with the trolls. Their bodies were so bulky that delivering a lethal strike was an art. Farodin had seen trolls pincushioned with arrows and still fighting. A knife thrown hard into the eye was his preferred method of killing them quickly and silently.

  If he had learned anything in the hundreds of years of his vendetta, it was the rule that one should never get close to a troll in a fight. A single blow from their heavy clubs or axes was enough to smash an elf. A slash from a sword normally had little effect on a troll. Parrying a blow from a troll was impossible, as the sheer force of it would break any arm raised in defense. The only chance you had was to dodge, but keeping your distance was better.

  To kill a troll with a sword stroke, you had to cut its throat. But delivering such a stroke was difficult simply because of their size. The only other possibility was to stab upward at an angle, striking beneath the ribs and up into the heart. This could work if you first made it through their cover, but if your life was dear to you, you would never get so close to a troll in the first place.

  Farodin crouched on the cold cave floor and spread his arms slightly. He emptied his thoughts and tried to focus his concentration completely on the secret kobold passages. It was possible to access almost every chamber in the Nightcrags using them. Where would Mandred be? And did the passages still exist? Or had the trolls found them and bricked up the concealed entrances just as they had outside at the foot of the cliff?

  Meat

  Mandred awoke in a cage. He could see very little. This place was almost pitch dark. When he moved, the cage began to swing slightly; it seemed to be hanging by a rope.

  The jarl tried to stretch, but his arms were tied at his back and the cage was so small that he was forced into a crouch. He thought with horror of the prisoners at the horse market in Iskendria who had been thrown into cages to die of thirst. Again, he tried to rear up, but it was futile. The thin leather cords only cut more painfully into his wrists.

  He tried to remember how he had gotten here. He had vomited, there in the middle of that hall. The trolls had laughed and pushed him around. In pure disgust, he had called the prince a filthy liar. Orgrim had not been particularly impressed. The opposite, in fact; he asked Mandred cynically if he called his goats and geese prisoners. His taunting had been unbearable. Finally, Mandred had drawn his axe, an incredibly stupid mistake. But he could not have done anything else. With a cry, he had attacked Orgrim. He wanted to smash his skull. But before he could get to the prince, another troll had thrown a club between his legs and he had fallen. Orgrim disarmed him with a kick, then left him to the mercy of Scandrag the cook. Scandrag had grabbed hold of him by the scruff of his neck like a puppy and bound his hands behind his back. Any resistance was useless; against a troll, he was as powerless as a child.

  The last thing he had heard from Orgrim was the announcement that they would see each other again at dinner on midwinter’s night. Mandred shouted back at him that he hoped he choked to death on the meal. That was when Scandrag hit him.

  Whispering jolted Mandred out of his thoughts. Someone was above him, to one side. The voice was low and husky. A short silence, then the whisper came again, but this time, the tone and the rhythms had changed. Finally, the voice spoke Elvish, but Mandred could understand only a few words. The talk was about a test, about languages and humans, probably about him.

  “Do you speak Dailish?” asked Mandred in the language of the centaurs.

  “Who are you?” countered the voice in Dailish.

  Mandred hesitated. Was this some kind of trick of the trolls to get out of him what he had not said at the table? “I am Torgrid of Firnstayn,” he finally answered.

  “How did they catch you?” asked the voice above him.

  “I was hunting.” Slowly, his eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness. Other cages were hanging around his.

  “How does a human hunter come to speak the language of the centaurs? Who taught you? Since the days of Alfadas, the Albenkin have had little to do with humans.”

  Mandred cursed silently. The truth will out. “I was taught by a friend.”

  “The mortal is lying,” said a tired voice now, far up in the darkness. “My ears can’t abide his lies, and they can’t stand his mutilation of Dailish. Forget him. Scandrag will take him next. The midwinter feast is not far off. I can feel it. Until then, be silent, my brothers and sisters. We are no more than meat, anyway. And meat does not talk.”

  Then hold your tongues, you bastards, thought Mandred. Punish me. In two or three hours, Farodin will get me out of this cage. And then you’ll kiss my feet for coming here.

  A Glance in the Mirror

  Nuramon followed the dwarven king, certain that another surprise was waiting for him at the end of the passage. He had never in his life received as much recognition as he had here in the halls of the dwarves. The king had given a feast in his honor, and Nuramon had celebrated like never before, in such high spirits that he barely recognized himself. A little goodwill had been enough, and Nuramon already felt himself to be part of the society here. The dwarves indeed claimed that he had been too polite when raising his cup, but he had done his best to conform to their rough customs at table, and he ate and drank things he would otherwise never have touched.

  Many of the dwarves asked him whether he could still remember meeting them, but to his regret, he recognized nobody from his previous life. He had been hoping that the familiar surroundings would give him back his memory of those times, but it was obviously not that easy. But if he were to believe Thorwis, then one day he would recognize all of his dwarf friends again and know what he once had observed, thought, and felt.

  Nuramon had long since come to understand why he had stood at the side of the dwarves in that previous life, although at first glance they had so little in common. Thorwis had told him that the dwarves knew the moonlight and called it silverlight, but that, so far, very few had passed into it. Most dwarves chronicled the experiences of their lifetime and, at some point, died, only to be born into their own inheritance in a new life. From the beginning, rebirth had been the rule for the children of the Darkalben. It was understood that death was just an interruption of life, like a time of sleep that clouded the memory. In time, one could regain that memory, and death was no more than a brief dream.

  Some dwarves had managed to recall all of their lives. Thorwis and Wengalf were among these, but most were still on the path to that goal. Until they reached it, they would continue to read the texts they had written and left for them
selves to remind themselves of what had mattered most to them in their past lives.

  Nuramon was still far from retrieving these memories. He knew little about himself, and he hadn’t left anything for his rebirth. Wengalf and Thorwis told him that he had come to know the dwarves when they were still in Albenmark and that he had left alongside them and become a hero in their new home. But the things they were telling him were at odds with the image he had drawn of himself. They spoke of a hero of the sort sung about in old songs. But what had he done in this life to warrant that kind of acclaim? Nothing.

  Wengalf spoke then, bringing Nuramon back to the moment. “We’re nearly there. We have to go this way.” The dwarf turned into a wide corridor. It was cool here, with a coolness that did not match the warmth of the light cast by the barinstones in the walls. At some distance, Nuramon could see a stronger source of light, its glow spilling out into the corridor.

  “What is this place?” asked Nuramon.

  “These are the Halls of the Faces,” answered Wengalf cryptically.

  They came closer and closer to the bright light, and it soon seemed as if snow and ice were frozen onto the walls and radiated light. Nuramon realized that he was looking at crystals. When they reached the light, he saw what the walls had created: white minerals grew out of them in thin crystal needles, looking like pale tufts of grass. Beyond this section, the corridor opened into a circular hall with a low domed ceiling. In the center of the hall, a round opening guided light from the ceiling down onto a quartz crystal as big as an elf. Inside the crystal was a figure, completely enclosed and standing upright.

  “You never asked me what we did with your body after you died,” said Wengalf quietly as they approached the large crystal.

  Nuramon was suddenly frightened. In front of him, inside the crystal, stood an elf in metal armor. His eyes were closed as if he were sleeping. For Nuramon, it was like looking into a mirror. This man had black hair, not brown, and it was much longer than his own. The face was a little wider, the nose shorter. But despite these differences, he recognized himself in the elf before him. The dwarves had brought his body to this hall and, using their magical skills, enclosed it inside the crystal. The result looked like a statue of a mythical hero. Nuramon moved around the crystal and scrutinized the body from his previous life. Compared with this warrior with his broad shoulders and noble bearing, he must seem like a child. There could be no doubt about who he was looking at.