Lattimer turned to look at the broken chair and saw the timid crowd in the corridor. “Bring the Master a new chair,” he ordered. “Bring two chairs and get that mess in the hall cleaned up.”
Lattimer knew he had just moments to calm Sarac down before his temper ignited something else. “Master, the ogres are ignorant savages. They have no knowledge of the finer things in life.”
“Finer things?” scowled Sarac. “They have no concepts at all. I have never seen woodworking so primitive. Even the castle walls are crooked and their eating habits are grotesque.”
Lattimer thought back to their first year in the land. At first, they hadn’t even been aware of the ogres that dwelt in the mountains, until some of the Black Devils started to disappear. He remembered his horror at seeing these giant beasts fighting over the carcass of one of his friends. He pictured their horribly sharp teeth set in their squared-off mouths tearing into the human’s flesh. “Yes, that is a problem, but they seem unable to comprehend the concept of eating utensils. At least, they are not eating us anymore.”
Sarac smirked. “They dare not try anything like that again, now that they have found their god, for I will smite them down if they defy my law. What ignorant fools! One hundred thousand of them and less than one hundred of us and they do all the work. How are we progressing with their speech?”
“The leader, Urk, is doing fairly well,” answered Lattimer. “A couple of dozen others are also doing well, but most of the remainder are near hopeless. It is worse than trying to teach children. One of them gets a word right and a fight breaks out. I have started the men teaching them one at a time and that seems to work better.”
Two Black Devils entered the room and set down chairs for Sarac and Lattimer. Without looking at their leader or his aide, they scurried out of the room. Sarac tested his chair and was satisfied when it didn’t rock. Lattimer smiled when he saw the fresh cut marks on one of the legs and realized that his men had made sure the chair was level.
“Has there been anything at all that resembles a book?” asked Sarac.
“No,” answered Lattimer. “The ogres have no notion of writing and we have found no other intelligent life anywhere.” Lattimer thought back to his days spent in Targa, reading and studying. It seemed so long ago and such a foreign, abstract thought in this land. “Master, do you think we will ever find the way back?”
Sarac seemed distracted by the question and appeared to gaze right through his Aide. “Yes, Lattimer, we will return to Targa and when we do, we will rule it and everything else. We have one hundred thousand warriors that will return with us and eat our enemies after they have crushed them. All of our enemies except for one. I want the pleasure of dealing with her myself. Jenneva will join Egam and Kirsta in death, but her death will be much slower and much more painful. You will want to be there, Lattimer. It will be a very pleasurable sight to behold.”
“What of our brothers in Targa, won’t they be spared?”
“Oh, certainly. Actually, we need to keep quite a few people alive when we attack. Someone has to perform the tasks that these moronic ogres cannot. Besides, I imagine not too many of the one hundred thousand ogres will survive. Perhaps just enough for a small army to keep the people in line.”
Sarac gazed out the window again at the huge ogres building his castle. They were fierce warriors and he knew it would take more than the slash of a sword to fell one. One hundred thousand of them may equal a quarter of a million soldiers back on Targa. Nothing on the entire continent could stand up to his army, but first he had to find a way back and there was something about that thought that bothered him.
“Lattimer, did you have some of our men retrace our steps of the first year?”
“Yes, Master, several times. I admit that I don’t understand what you were looking for. It might help me if I knew what I was supposed to find.”
“Nothing, Lattimer, you were supposed to find nothing. I have been trying to piece together how we ended up here in the land of the ogres. I suspect during the battle, Jenneva realized that she could not beat me and cast a spell that I have never seen. Obviously, it didn’t kill us because nothing she knows could penetrate my shields, so she must have transported us somewhere.”
“But how could she have done that, Master? What spell could she have known that you did not?”
“Jenneva is a very clever witch, Lattimer. She fooled me into thinking Egam was dead and Kirsta, too. What she disclosed, though, was that she knew both of them before she came to my castle. I long believed that Kirsta had found the Origin Scroll and was afraid to turn it over to me. She never did have a liking for the Dark Side. It was her weak spot and why she died. Jenneva was not shocked when I mentioned the Origin Scroll, in fact, she led me to believe that she had seen it.”
Sarac seemed to be working something out mentally and stopped talking. After a few moments, Lattimer egged him on. “So, you think the Origin Scroll might have had something to do with our transportation?”
Sarac snapped his gaze back to Lattimer as if just noticing him. “Yes, I think she read the Origin Scroll and used it on us. She created a new Universe and sent us into it. She didn’t have to pierce our shields to do that because she just transported us, wards and all, to a new Universe. The problem with that is a new Universe should not have creatures like the ogres in it. I mean, a new Universe would have life in it, but not intelligent life, well, semi-intelligent life.”
Sarac left the window and paced the floor of his study. After several moments of silence he sat on the corner of his desk and didn’t seem to notice its movement when he sat. Lattimer was glad of Sarac’s preoccupation. He had finally calmed Sarac and did not need him to notice the legs on the desk.
“You see, Lattimer, when we first appeared in this Universe, we saw no ogres. It was months before the first of my Black Devils went missing. I believe that somehow we transported ourselves from the Universe that Jenneva sent us to, to this one with the ogres. I didn’t want to share this with your team because it could be reflected in your reporting, but now I must send you out again to retrace our steps. Somewhere along our journey we moved between Universes and if we did it once, we can do it again.”
“What good would it do us to get back to an empty Universe? At least here we have the ogres to do our work for us.”
“True, but if we can get back to the new Universe, why can’t we get all of the way back to the Universe of Targa? See, if we can travel between Universes, then we should be able to travel between all Universes. Jenneva is not as clever as she thinks. Some day soon, she is going to meet someone she doesn’t ever expect to see again.”
“Okay,” Lattimer conceded, “but how will we know when we’ve entered into the new Universe that we originally came from? It will look no different than this one or we would have noticed it when we came here.”
“I am not sure,” Sarac replied. “That is what has been eating away at me all day. How can we tell the difference? The intersections of the Universes must be fairly small or the ogres would have stumbled into the other Universe long ago, so we are looking for something so small that if you didn’t remember the exact path you would never find it again.”
“Suppose,” Lattimer offered, “that the ogres have stumbled into the other Universe, but just came back out again?”
Sarac did not heed Lattimer’s question right away. He was still lost in thought on the size of the intersection. Finally, he looked at Lattimer and smiled.
“Of course,” he declared. “You are all taking the same path! Okay, here is what I want you to do. Get three groups of men and pick out a spot one day’s walk distant. Each group has to get to the meeting spot by a different route. One of the groups must take the same route that we took, but the other two must not. Continue doing this until you have reached a meeting spot that at least one of the other groups does not show up at. When this happens, all groups are to turn around and meet at the previous day’s meeting place.”
Sarac was
getting excited now and resumed pacing the floor. “Somewhere in that day’s journey is the intersection, so now you perform the same procedure, but cut the distance in half. Pick out a spot that is only a half-day’s journey. Keep doing this and cutting the distance in half until all three groups are in sight of each other. One of the groups will disappear because they have entered a new Universe. That, Lattimer, is how we are going to find our intersection.”
“That will only get us to the new Universe,” complained Lattimer. “We have no path to trace back to Targa.”
“One thing at a time, Lattimer. First, we must prove that we can move between Universes with no more effort than walking. If we can do that, we will have our way back to Targa. Go! Get those teams assembled and leave first thing in the morning. I want the location of that intersection as soon as you find it.”
Lattimer turned and hurried out of the study. Sarac smiled and felt truly good for the first time in many months. Soon he would be going home and the people at home weren’t going to like seeing him very much.
The owl and the eagle descended at the edge of the forest, just short of the forest path. Together, Egam and Jenneva stepped onto the path and Egam shouted, “I am Egam with Jenneva and we have come to speak with King Gondoral. May we enter Glendor?”
Prince Elgorn soundlessly stepped into the path. “Welcome to Glendor, Egam and Jenneva. I will lead you.”
No other elves could be seen, but Egam knew they were being watched. The silence of the elves always amazed him. The fair elf prince led the magicians to the village and presented them to his parents.
“Greetings to Egam and Jenneva, friends of the elves,” declared King Gondoral. “What brings you to Glendor?”
“King Gondoral, Queen Gelfora,” began Egam, “we have come to learn.”
“What knowledge do you seek that we may share with you?” asked King Gondoral.
“The knowledge of the beginning of Glendor,” stated Egam.
“We settled here many years ago after the Time of Desolation,” answered the elf King. “Why is this important?”
“King Gondoral,” pleaded Jenneva, “it is important that we know the story of the Time of Desolation without stating our reason. We seek not to withhold information from the elves, but wish only to declare the order in which we share the information.”
The King stared at the two magicians for a time, his face impassive. He signaled for Galdan to join the conversation. “Galdan, our friends request information regarding the Time of Desolation. Please recite our history and the founding of Glendor, then we shall find the true reason for their visit.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” acknowledged Galdan. “Many years ago the elves lived throughout the continent and hunted and toiled in solitude and peace. One-day dwarves arose from out of the South. These dwarves were an advancing army and meant to dwell in our lands. Our villagers showed themselves to turn the dwarves back. Instead of turning back, the dwarves attacked. The elves at that time were not warriors, for we did not fight among ourselves and we believed that no others existed. We were no match for the mighty dwarf invaders, as we were farmers and hunters. This was in the time of King Elisar the Great.”
“Do your records show that incident as the first meeting with the dwarves?” Jenneva asked.
“Yes,” replied the elf magician. “Runners were dispatched to inform the King of the invading army and a band of the best hunters were dispatched under Prince Geltim, King Elisar’s eldest son. The villagers banded together and the dwarves were turned northwestward. There were many more clashes, but the elves tried to keep the dwarves on the outskirts of our known land.”
“You mention your known land,” interrupted Egam. “Does that mean that there was land that the elves had no knowledge of?”
“No,” continued Galdan, “it merely means the land the elves chose to live in. We had explored the entire continent or at least our people believed they had. Obviously, they missed finding the dwarves, but then the dwarves live inside mountains and our explorers would have climbed over the mountains. The elves chose the most fertile fields and the most plentiful forests. This would be the area known today as southern Targa and northern Sordoa, a land we called Elderal.”
Galdan waited a moment to see if the answer satisfied the magicians and then continued. “By the time Prince Geltim arrived in the West, the dwarves had entered the mountains now known as the Boulder Mountains. There was discussion as to whether to follow the dwarves or stay in the valley and keep watch for them returning. Prince Geltim decided to follow them and led his band of hunters up into the mountains. They searched until the first snows of winter, but could find no trace of the dwarves. At that time, the elves had no knowledge of the ways of dwarves and did not think of seeking underground for their enemy.”
“Or, it is thought that the dwarves may have looped around the mountains and returned to the valley while Prince Geltim was searching the peaks,” added the King.
“Yes, quite true,” reflected Galdan. “Anyway, when Prince Geltim returned to the valley to escape the harsh winter, he could not find the nearest village. It was completely wiped out. The dwarves left no trace that the village ever existed. Prince Geltim was furious and hurried off to the next village. It, too, was gone. Throughout the winter, Prince Geltim and his men searched all over Elderal for some remains of his father’s Kingdom, but there was none. The dwarves had annihilated every living elf.”
“Do the records show any signs of the destruction?” asked Egam.
“Quite the contrary,” conceded Galdan. “The dwarves not only destroyed the villages and killed the inhabitants, they also took the time to wipe away all traces that the elves had ever existed. This became known as the Time of Desolation and Prince Geltim swore revenge upon the dwarves. When the spring flowers began to bloom, Prince Geltim encountered another race, humans. They had built villages along the waters of the sea, but they did not appear to be warriors, either. Cautiously, the Prince kept his distance. The humans’ ears were not very good and Prince Geltim and his men were able to observe the humans for many months and determined that they were not aligned with the dwarves.”
“So Prince Geltim decided that the humans had not wiped out the elf villages?” asked Jenneva.
“Yes,” answered Galdan. “They were farmers and hunters and not very good hunters, at that. They made so much noise in the forests that the animals had time to run. They could never have sneaked up on an elf village. Prince Geltim’s band continued to search for their king throughout the year and into the next, but never did they find a living elf. During this time, the humans began to spread up the rivers and create new villages, so Prince Geltim led his band back into the mountains to search for the dwarves. After several years of searching, Prince Geltim discovered this valley and reasoned that his small band of elves would be safe here from the attacking dwarves and the spreading humans. That is how Glendor began.”
“How did your civilization exist with only hunters?” asked Jenneva. “I mean, with no women, how could your race survive?”
Queen Gelfora smiled. “Female elves are excellent hunters and some of the best of Prince Geltim’s hunters were women. So now you know of the Time of Desolation. Why does this concern you?”
Egam answered. “We told you of Jenneva’s use of the Origin Scroll to create a new Universe and our search for the Book of the Beginning to learn more about these Universes. We have not found the Book of the Beginning, but we do have a theory concerning the Universes. We believe that there are intersections in the Universes. The Time of Desolation and the dwarves’ Suffering both relate to the same period of time. You have heard of the dwarves’ Suffering, have you not?”
“We have heard the preposterous stories,” stated King Gondoral. “There is little truth in them. The elves were not warriors and had no armies. My people could never have attacked the dwarves successfully. Now it is a different story. We are ever prepared should the dwarves come again.”
“I
believe that both stories are only partially true,” continued Egam. “Do not take offense at this. Let me explain our theory before we lower ourselves to arguing. The dwarves sent out explorers and discovered the Boulder Mountains. They did not encounter any elves. Then they sent a large party to colonize the newly found mountains. This time they did encounter elves and the descriptions of the small battles coincide with your history. I postulate that the second group of dwarves passed into your Universe somehow. By the time they encountered their first elf, their entire civilization no longer existed to them because it was left behind in a different Universe.”
“So,” interrupted Galdan, “you are saying that in King Elisar’s Universe there were no dwarves?”
“Correct,” answered Egam, “except the traveling band that your villagers fought and Prince Geltim pursued. I think that band of dwarves then passed through another intersection into our present Universe and settled where they now live. Prince Geltim must have been a good tracker, indeed, because he passed through the very same intersection into our Universe. He probably didn’t find the dwarves because, as you stated, he did not know enough to seek underground.”
“So,” Galdan summarized, “when Prince Geltim returned to the valley, he was in the wrong Universe to find his people. There were only humans to be found.”
“Exactly,” Egam said. “In essence, there was no Suffering and no Time of Desolation. Both civilizations still exist, but in their own Universes.”
King Gondoral was not convinced. “Have you discussed your theories with King Tugar?”
“Yes,” replied Jenneva. “He is almost as convinced as you are, Your Majesty.”
Galdan could barely conceal his smile. “So, he requests proof of this theory as well, then?”
“Yes,” stated Egam giving Jenneva a stern look. “We plan to prove the theory if we are able. The Book of the Beginning would help immensely, but we have been unable to find it. If we could, however, find in your records the exact path that Prince Geltim’s band took, we might be able to return to Elderal.”
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