The old man looked at his guards and they trudged off.
“How’s Renwick?” Mince asked. “Did he make it to Aquesta?”
“I’m sorry,” Monsignor Merton replied kindly. “We traveled by sea around the horn to Vernes and then by coach. We left quite some time ago, so it is entirely possible that he arrived after we left. Was he a friend?”
Mince nodded.
“He rode to Aquesta with news that the elves were attacking from the southeast,” Brand said. “They came right by here, they did.”
“I’m sorry I can’t tell you more,” the priest said.
“Pleasant little place you have here,” the old man mentioned, looking around. “It’s nice that you put your camp under the holly tree. I like the splash of green on such a day as this, when it seems as if all the color has been stolen. It has been a long, cold winter, but it will soon be over. A new world is about to bloom.”
Mince heard the distant sound of music and instantly he threw his hands to his ears.
“Is that…?” Elbright asked, alarmed, raising his own hands as Mince bobbed his head.
“Relax, boys,” the Patriarch said. “That melody is not enchanted. It is the “Ibyn Ryn,” the Ervian anthem.”
“But it’s the elves!” Elbright said. “They’re coming!”
“Yes.” The Patriarch glanced up the hill and then down at the hole. “It’s a race now.”
CHAPTER 26
THE RETURN
I love this chamber,” Arista said as they spread out blankets on the same flat rock. Overhead the glowworms glimmered and winked, and she noticed for the first time how much she missed seeing the sky.
Magnus gathered his rocks in the center once more. “This is nothing compared to the wonders that I have seen in the deep. My grandfather once took me into the mountains of the Dithmar Range of Trent to a place only he knew. He told me that I needed to know where I came from. He took me deep into a crevasse to where a river went underground. We disappeared inside for weeks. My mother and father were furious when we finally returned. They didn’t want me to get ideas. They had already given up, but my grandfather—he knew.”
Magnus sparked a stone against another. “The things he showed me were amazing. Chambers hundreds of times the size of this one made of shimmering crystal so that a single glow stone could make it bright as day. Stone cathedrals with pillars and teeth, and waterfalls that dropped so far you could not hear the roar. Everything down there was so vast, so wide, so big—we felt immeasurably small. It is sometimes hard to believe in Drome, seeing what has become of his people, but in places like this, and certainly in halls like the ones my grandfather showed me, it’s like seeing the face of god firsthand.”
Arista spread her blanket next to Hadrian.
“What are you trying to do there, Magnus?” Hadrian asked.
“Provide a little light. There are lots of this kind of stone here. My grandfather showed me how to make them burn—smolder, really.”
“Let me help.” Arista made a modest motion and the trio of rocks ignited and burned as a perfect campfire.
The dwarf frowned. “No, no. Stop it. I can get it.”
Arista clapped and the fire vanished. “I just wanted to help.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not natural.”
“And making rocks glow by slamming them together is?” Hadrian asked.
“Yes—if you’re a dwarf.”
Magnus got his rocks glowing and the rest gathered around them to eat. They were each down to their last meals and hoped to emerge aboveground the following day, or the last leg of the trip would be a hungry one.
“Aha!” Myron said. He had laid his books out near the rocks, giddy that there was enough light to read by.
“Discover the proper pronunciation to another name?” Hadrian asked. “Is Degan’s real name Gwyant?”
“Hum? Oh, no, I found Mawyndulë—the one Antun Bulard and Esrahaddon spoke of.”
“You found him?”
“Yes, in this book. Ever since I read Mr. Bulard’s last scribbled words, I’ve been trying to find information on him. I reasoned that he must have read something shortly before he died. As these were the only books he had with him in the library, it stood to reason that Mawyndulë was mentioned somewhere in one of them. Wouldn’t you know it would be in the last book I read? Migration of Peoples by Princess Farilane. It is really a very biased accounting of how the Instarya clan took control of the elven empire. But it mentions Nyphron, the horn, and Mawyndulë.”
“What does it say?” Arista asked.
“It says the elves were constantly warring between the various tribes, and quite a bloody and violent people until they obtained the horn.”
“I mean, what does it say about Mawyndulë?”
“Oh.” Myron looked embarrassed. “I don’t know. I haven’t read that yet. I just saw his name.”
“Then let’s be quiet and let the man read.”
Everyone remained silent, staring at the monk as he scanned the pages. Arista wondered if all the glaring distracted Myron, but as he rapidly turned page after page of dense script, she realized that the monk was unflappable with a book before him.
“Oh,” Myron finally said.
“ ‘Oh’ what?” Arista asked.
“I know why the horn didn’t make a sound when Degan blew it.”
“Well?” Hadrian asked.
The monk looked up. “You were right. Like you said in the tomb, it’s a horn of challenge.”
“And?”
“Degan’s already king. He can’t challenge himself, so it made no sound.”
“What does all this have to do with Mawyndulë?” Arista asked.
Myron shrugged. “Still reading.”
The monk returned his attention to the book.
“We should be out tomorrow, right?” Arista asked Hadrian, who nodded. “How long have we been down here?”
Hadrian shrugged and looked to Royce.
The thief, having completed his survey of the perimeter, took a seat around the glow of the rocks with the rest of them and fished in his pack for his meal. “At least a week.”
“What will we find up there?” she asked herself as much as anyone else. “What if we’re too late?”
“So the Uli Vermar is the reign of a king,” Myron said. “Usually three thousand years—the average life span of an elf, apparently.”
“Really?” Mauvin asked, and glanced at Royce. “How old are you?”
“Not that old.”
“Remember the emperors in the tomb?” Arista said. “Mixing elven blood with human reduces the life span.”
“Yeah, but he’ll still outlive everyone here, except maybe Gaunt, right?”
“Why me?” Gaunt, who had been miserably picking at the remains of his meal, looked up.
“You’re an elf too.”
Gaunt grimaced. “I’m an elf?”
“You’re related to Novron, right?”
“But… I don’t want to be an elf.”
“You’ll get used to it.” Royce smirked.
“Ah, here it is,” Myron said. “Mawyndulë was a member of the Miralyith, and during the time before Novron, they were the ruling tribe.” He paused and, looking up, added, “Unlike us, elves don’t have consistent nobility. Whichever tribe the king is from becomes the ruling one and holds power over the rest, but only for one generation, or the length of the Uli Vermar. Then they face the challenge and if a new king wins the throne, his tribe becomes the new ruling elite.”
“But not anyone in the tribe can challenge for the chance to be king, I’ll bet,” Gaunt said. “There is still a hereditary nobility in the tribes, right? There always is.”
“For once I have to side with him,” Royce said. “People might like to give the appearance of giving up power, but actually giving it up—that doesn’t happen.”
“Technically, I think anyone can challenge,” Myron explained. “But true, traditionally it is the leader of a given trib
e. However, he is elected by the clan leaders.”
“Interesting,” Mauvin said. “A society without nobility, where leaders are elected. See, Gaunt? You really are an elf.”
“So someone blows the horn, fights, wins the challenge, and becomes king,” Arista stated. “He’s expected to rule for three thousand years, but what if he doesn’t? If he dies in an accident, then the crown goes to his next of kin. That part I get. But what happens if the king dies and doesn’t have any blood relatives? Then what?”
“That would also end the Uli Vermar,” Myron said. “And the first person to blow the horn then becomes the new king, and he then presents it to anyone else to challenge him. And that’s exactly what appears to have happened.” Myron tapped the page in the book. “After the battle of Avempartha, as Nyphron was poised to invade his homeland—”
“Wait a second,” Mauvin said. “Are Nyphron and Novron the same person?”
“Yes,” Myron, Arista, and Hadrian all said together.
“Just as Teshlor is the bastardized pronunciation of the elf warrior Techylor, Novron is the bastardized form of Nyphron. So as I was saying, Nyphron was poised to invade his homeland when the Uli Vermar ended, and the elven high council presented the horn to Novron, making him king and ending the war.”
“The Uli Vermar ended just then? That sounds awfully convenient,” Royce said. “I’m guessing the elven king didn’t die of natural causes.”
Myron looked back down and read aloud. “ ‘And so it came to pass that in the night of the day of the third turn, thus was sent Mawyndulë of the tribe Miralyith. And by the council he was thus charged with the…’ ” Myron stopped speaking, but his eyes raced across the page.
“What is it?” Arista asked, but Myron raised a finger to stall her.
They all watched as Myron reached up and turned another page, his eyes widening, his eyebrows rising.
“By Mar, monk!” Magnus erupted. “Stop reading and tell us.”
Myron looked up with a startled expression. “Mawyndulë murdered the elven king.”
“And if he had any children, they were also murdered, weren’t they?”
“No,” Myron said, surprising Royce. “His only son survived.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” Arista said. “If his son was alive, why didn’t he become king? Why did the Uli Vermar end?”
“Because,” Myron replied, “Mawyndulë was his son.”
It took a moment for this to register. The timing was different for each of them as around the circle of flickering light, they each made a sound of understanding.
“So Mawyndulë couldn’t become king because he had committed murder?” Hadrian asked.
“Regicide,” Myron corrected. “Significantly more deplorable in elvish society, for it places at risk the very foundation of their civilization and the peace that Ferrol granted them with the gift of the horn. As a result Mawyndulë was banished—stricken from elvish society and cursed by Ferrol, thereby barred from Alysin, the elvish afterlife.”
“So why did he do it?” Arista asked.
“Princess Farilane doesn’t actually say. Perhaps no one knows.”
“So Novron blew the horn and became king and that ended the war.” Hadrian finished the last of his meal and folded up his pack.
“That was certainly the plan,” Myron said. “No one was supposed to blow the horn after Novron did. No one was supposed to challenge his rule. According to the laws of the horn, if it is presented but no challenger blows the horn within the course of a day, then the king retains his crown.”
“But someone challenged?”
“Mawyndulë,” Myron said. “As it happens there are no restrictions on who can blow the horn other than they must be of elven blood. Even an outcast, even one cursed by Ferrol, can still challenge. And if he wins—”
“If he wins, he’s back in,” Royce finished.
“Yes.”
“But he lost, right?” Mauvin asked.
“Novron was a battle-hardened veteran of a lengthy war,” Hadrian concluded. “And Myron said Mawyndulë was just a kid?”
“Yes.” The monk nodded. “It was a quick and humiliating defeat.”
“But this doesn’t make sense,” Arista said. “Esrahaddon told us he was convinced that Mawyndulë was still alive.”
“Nyphron did not kill Mawyndulë. While the challenge is usually a fight to the death, Nyphron let him live. Perhaps because he was so young, or maybe because as an outcast he was no threat. What is known is that Mawyndulë was exiled, never allowed in Erivan again.”
“So how did Novron die?” Mauvin asked.
“He was murdered.”
“By who?”
“No one knows.”
“I would wager on Mawyndulë,” Royce said.
“Hmm…” Arista pulled on her lower lip, deep in thought.
“What?” Royce asked.
“I was just thinking about what Esrahaddon said when he was dying. He warned that the Uli Vermar was ending and that I had to take the heir to Percepliquis to get the horn. But his very last words were ‘Patriarch… is the same…’ I always assumed that he was never able to finish the sentence before he died, but what if he said all he meant to? Myron, how many patriarchs have there been?”
“Twenty-two including Patriarch Nilnev.”
“Yes, and how old is he?”
“I don’t recall reading about his birth, but he’s been patriarch for sixty years.”
“Myron, what are some of the other patriarchs’ names?”
“Before Patriarch Nilnev was Patriarch Evlinn. Before him was Patriarch Lenvin. Before that—”
Arista’s eyes widened. “Is it possible?”
“Is what possible?” Royce asked.
Arista got to her knees. “Does anyone have anything to write with?”
“I have a bit of chalk.” Myron produced a white nib from a pouch.
“Nilnev, Evlin, Lenvin, Venlin…” Arista scrawled the words on the flat rock.
“There are two n’s on Evlinn,” the monk corrected.
She looked up and smiled. “Of course there are. There would have to be. Don’t you see? Esrahaddon was right. He changed his name, his appearance. He must have found a position in the Cenzar Council of Emperor Nareion, which would have been easy given his mastery of the Art. Esrahaddon knew that Venlin and Nilnev were the same. In fact, every patriarch since the first has been the same person—Mawyndulë.”
“It would explain why the church was so intent on finding the heir,” Hadrian said. “If they killed the bloodline of Novron, the Uli Vermar would end early.”
“Which would be fine, if Mawyndulë had the horn. The fact that he didn’t was probably the only thing keeping Gaunt alive when they had him locked up. This explains why the Patriarch has sent so many teams down here. What he didn’t realize, though, is you actually needed the heir to succeed. Esrahaddon took precautions. That’s why he told me that the heir had to come. I’m not sure exactly what he did, but I venture to say that anyone other than Gaunt touching the horn’s box would have been killed.”
“That also explains why the Patriarch hired Magnus to kill Gaunt. With the heir dead, a single toot of the horn would make Nilnev king by default, just as it was supposed to do with Novron,” Hadrian said.
“Yes, but if the Patriarch blows the horn and Gaunt is still alive, then he’s not claiming an empty throne but rather announcing his right to challenge, right?” Arista looked to Myron, who nodded. “So if Gaunt wins, he becomes king of the elves and they have to do whatever he says. And if he tells them to go back across the Nidwalden and leave us alone, they will.”
“Theoretically,” Mryon said.
“So all we have to do is make the Patriarch think he succeeded. We’ll tell him Gaunt is dead and keep him hidden until the horn is blown. Then we’ll spring the trap.”
“Are you forgetting about this fight-to-the-death thing?” Gaunt asked.
“That won’t be a problem,�
� Arista reassured him. “He’s old, even for an elf. A breath of wind could kill him. He doesn’t want to fight you. He’s terrified of a fight. That’s why he wants you dead.”
Gaunt sat silent, his eyes working.
“So what do you say, Degan?” Arista asked. “You wanted to be emperor. How does king of the elves sound to you?”
Arista reached the surface and lay on the wet ground, exhausted. The dazzling morning light shone in her eyes and played across her skin. She had so missed the sun that she lay with arms outstretched, bathing in its warmth. The fresh air was so wonderful that she drank it in as if it were cool water discovered after crossing an arid desert.
For a time she had thought she might not make it out of the hole and back to Amberton Lee. Even with the rope around her, she clung to rocks, shaking from both exhaustion and fear. Hadrian was always there offering encouragement, calling to her, pushing her to try harder. There were a few places where Royce and Hadrian had to pull her up a particularly difficult section and her progress was often slow. Even with his wounded arm Mauvin climbed faster. Still, now that it was over, she was proud of her accomplishment and the sun on her face was the reward.
She was awakened from her reverie when she heard Magnus quietly say, “He’s here.”
Getting up, she saw four men walking swiftly toward them. The Patriarch was flanked by two guards and behind them was Monsignor Merton, whom Arista had met once in Ervanon. They appeared out of place, descending the ragged slope with the bottoms of their robes wet from being dragged across the melting snow.
Accompanied by Hadrian, Mauvin, Magnus, and Myron, Arista moved away from the open maw of the shaft and pushed through a large copse of forsythia, threatening to bloom. Hadrian took her hand and pulled her close.
“Give me the horn, quickly,” the Patriarch said, extending his hand. Glancing over his shoulder toward the hilltop, he added, “The elves have arrived.”
Arista pulled off her pack and took out the box. “Gaunt died before he could blow it.”
The Patriarch smirked at her as he took the box. His eyes were transfixed as he drew out the horn and held it up.
“At last,” the old man said, and placed it to his lips. He blew into the horn and a long clear note of ominous tone cut through the air. It lacked any musical quality, sounding instead like a cry—a scream of hate and loathing. Each of them instinctively took a few steps backward until Arista felt the little branches of the forsythia jabbing her. The old man lowered his arms, a smile on his face. “You did very well.”
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