Alik realized he was being asked something and tried to formulate an answer, but Deran went on without it. “All we need is an interview with the emperor. Don’t you worry, Alik, I know he’ll like you—that’s inevitable—that is, it’s bound to happen. He’s a fair man and a visionary...in so much as he sees things. He won’t ask anything of you but your word for loyalty, and in return he’ll grant whatever you ask.”
“Kyi sa ‘emperor?’” Alik asked with misgivings.
“Kyi?” asked Deran.
“H...what person?”
“He is the man who rules Narrissor,” Deran said. “When you see him, ask him to be allowed to serve him as a national of Narrissor. This he will surely grant. Tell him who you are and as much as you want about your travels. This will interest him greatly as some of the news is of great significance to him...and to Narrissor. Then finally, when he grants you a request, ask him to grant you a mission, for that is the greatest and longest-lasting request.”
“Kyir vea na au cinm,” Alik asked. “What...it—‘mission’—has...of meaning?”
“Mission—ask him for a lifelong vocation—ask him to be a wizard. That is your true calling. That is what you must follow. You will keep that shard of yours and stay in Narrissor as one of us, teach those who can to become apprentices, instruct others in whatever kind of meditation or yoga you desire, as much or as little as you want, conduct your own studies in the meantime...make something of the world. And you wouldn’t have to stay in Narrissor perpetually, either. You wouldn’t even be expected to. Travel whenever, wherever you want. Adventure, pilgrimage. You’ll be free. Please, come in.”
They had just reached the suite of caves that was Deran’s home, and Deran opened the door.
Xetress bowed. “Lord, I’ll go to fulfill your orders; Pinuvel is within should you require anything else.”
“Very good,” Deran replied as Alik entered.
Deran’s suite was more capacious and more extravagant than Alik could ever have thought possible. Pinuvel, a spindly, shallow-eyed, pauperish, half-blooded rock elf with dark earth-colored clothes and cloak like Deran’s, stood bowed inside the doorway. Beyond him, a wide, low room spread out. The floors, the walls, the ceiling were rock, polished to a shine, that Alik stepped onto only conscientiously with his dirty, bare feet. Low, shining tables were carved out of the floor, and elegant displays of carved jewels inlaid in trees of gold were set upon them all.
“Pinuvel, hurry and bring the cobbler and the tailor and tell them to bring their materials for the boy. Is there a bath of water and some food set out?”
“Yes, Lord, as usual. I’ll bring them at once. It’s good to have you back.”
“Likewise,” said Deran, clapping his servant on the shoulder as he exited.
Deran led Alik into the next room, which was nearly as ornate and as wide as that from which they had just come. A large, black marble dining table filled the room. A corner of the table was laden with a simple meal, a pitcher of some earthy-smelling drink, a basin filled with water, and a towel. “Wash your hands and help yourself to the food,” Deran said, exiting into an adjoining room.
Alik dipped his hands into the water. It felt cool, smooth, easeful. He watched hypnotically as the ripples expanded to fill the bowl, reflect from the sides, and tingle against his hands. He dipped his face into the water.
The waters spoke: “From Channath Current that from the mountain springs we spring up/ we run through brooks and tight ways through the crevices/ of rock into the Ristor River/ to the sea, the sea/ around the globe we come to thee/ whispering, falling/ snow, now ice/ about the circling bands/ into your hands.”
Alik jumped back, startled, upsetting the bowl so that it fell and smashed in pieces against the floor. The water evaporated from his skin, leaving him cold.
Deran hurried in. “Are you all right?” he asked, seeing Alik, then the bowl. Deran had changed into a new but similar outfit of clothes and put on a new cloak, the same as the one he’d lost in the labyrinth. “Never mind the bowl,” he said, “Pinuvel will clean it up later. We have plenty more of those. Have something to eat; that will calm your nerves.” Deran himself took something by way of example. Alik dipped his hand into the dish and took some also.
“What do you think about what I said earlier? About becoming a wizard and a Narrissorean?” Deran asked. “I know you will love the Narrissorean people...once you get used to them. They are independent, in a way, eager to learn and to prove themselves, ambitious, energetic, athletic, disciplined, cooperative, skillful, wonderful people. They are not overly gregarious but if you befriend one then you have a friend indeed. They are not overly sophisticated or visionary but they do adhere to whatever they believe and they have a beautiful naturalness to them. What can you say to that?”
“Dolkir,” Alik answered in a voice that sounded to Deran vaguely like agreement.
“I hope you will stay...as my friend,” he said, looking Alik straight in the eye.
Alik didn’t know what to say. He could tell that Deran was fishing for a “yes,” but he himself was unsure, for the decision seemed one of great and long-lasting import. He nodded his head slowly.
Deran poured a little water from an available pitcher, washed his hands, dried them with the towel, and sat to eat. Alik ate also, but distractedly. When they were done, they got up and went into the adjoining room, Deran’s private sitting room.
This room was even finer than the last, though smaller. The walls were covered with thick, rich tapestries of earth-tones and reds mingled with threads of weaving silver and gold. The floor was carpeted from the skins of many large and long-haired bears. Luxurious chairs and couches circled the room. Deran sat down easily on one of these, while Alik, conscious of his dinginess, wandered about the room, taking in all its wonders.
One thing in particular attracted his attention. On the low table a dull, smoky black, crystalline scroll rack was set, and upon it a single scroll lay crosswise, ancient by its look, yellowed, slightly torn on the ends and with a dark carbon stain where it had once been narrowly saved from incineration.
“Kyr vea sa?”
“Don’t touch,” Deran said. “That is the most precious scroll ever to be written in the world, the Narrissyus of Tallan. The original. The holder isn’t valueless either. Here.” Deran rose and went to a corner of the room, reached behind the edge of the tapestry there, and retrieved a newer scroll, a copy of the original. “You see,” he said, “not even I can touch the original, it is so frail. But here:”
The Narrissyus of Tallan
Would you, heaven of history, in the hour of inspiration unveil
That tremulous tragedy recollected to our minds, of those who fought
And loved your glorious names in all they did in this world—
Preserver of rich treasures, Assuaging Myrrh, Counsel and Guide—
Of Channon, hero of the elves, falcon of liberating hope,
Whose words....
There Deran stopped. “So it goes on a while, but you get the picture,” he said. “High writing it is. About Channon, the Ristorian general who—ages ago it was, in the first goblin-elven war—liberated Narrissor for a short time from the goblin empire and who restored hope to the nation. Of course he died afterward and the goblins retook the country. In the end it was another three hundred or so years before Narrissor was actually freed, but now that’s part of who we are. But in any event, I hear the door.”
Sure enough, at that moment a knock came from the door, and Pinuvel returned preceded by the tailor and the cobbler, laden with their wares. “Come in, come in,” cried Deran, “we are in desperate need of your help.”
Alik decided he could well relate to this Channon character...and for a brief moment he remembered vividly the picture of the elf in the jungle who had been calling his name.
...Late in that year, the twenty-fifth of brutal goblin-elf war,
When Ristoria’s trees from green to regal purple had changed,
/> And nature for the icy breath of winter steeled herself,
And time its bands inscribed in the meat of every beast and tree;
Then, as out of the fiery pits flying, rode a sable
Mare carrying a sole surviving messenger, a dying elf—
Though bravely fought upon a time—to Channon of Ristoria;
The sad bearer of fallen Narrissor too late for her aid....
“I want you to take his measurements and get me a pair of good shoes and a sturdy outfit for this boy—on the double,” Deran told the tailor and cobbler. “Something warm, too, if you can.”
They nodded and fell upon Alik with measuring tape and chalk, and he surrendered to their attack.
...The general donned his armaments of war: his scarlet-feathered helm,
His vest, studded with golden legends and enameled with his feats of grace,
His golden-handled sword inscribed with the words he so often praised:
“Hope is liberation and true victory over all.”
The tailor, once he had taken the measurements, rummaged through a small bundle of clothes he had fortuitously brought and quickly produced a cloak, a tunic, and a pair of short pants that fit Alik perfectly. The cobbler was less fortunate but had a few pairs of nearly-completed shoes that he could with a little effort alter. Deran came and went, packing items into a large knapsack: flint and steel, provisions, knives, a small purse, a heavy cloak, and a change of clothes.
Alik borrowed a sturdy-looking string from the tailor and sat to weave his shard into a new necklace. This was done quickly and he donned it. Deran was just closing his knapsack and tightening its straps.
“Kyish...,” began Alik, then stopped and reformulated his thoughts, “What length we traveling for you packed?”
Deran said, “Didn’t I tell you, Alik, we have to see the emperor.”
“Of Narrissor,” Alik said.
“Yes,” replied Deran, “but he doesn’t live in Narrissor. He lives far away, to the north.”
The north. “He...being...emperor of the north?”
Deran sensed a tone of fear in that voice. Had that meddler Arran Delossan spoken to him about Emperor Morin? Or his father? Or the man in the Chellaeia camp? Or Miraea? He quickly thought. “He is the rightful king of the north and the south, and would have been so in actuality also if it had not been for the wicked revolution of the southern lands, in which his father was slain and his kingdom fragmented.”
“Kyir sa ‘actuality?’”
Deran threw up his hands. “It’s what actually is...what really is.”
“What then he destroying everything for cause?”
“The cause is justice; the cause is the good; the cause is the restoration of that power that preserves the peace and order of the world. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Kyir sa ‘preserves?’”
“Saves!” exhorted Deran. “Keeps; protects.”
“How good? How peace?” Alik shouted, standing. “Yuq’urr’q!”
Deran didn’t ask for a translation of that word: it seemed to carry in its sound, beyond the range of any natural noise, its meaning. But he was saved from answering anyway, for at that moment Xetress reentered, knocking, and reported, “My Lord Deran; the Master Grand General of the North, servant of the Emperor Morin II, General Krythar has arrived.”
Alik knelt in his rags and bare feet and all. “Please...Deran...you not monstering...in, by, with them. You ungiving me...with them.”
“Krythar is my enemy, too,” said Deran, soothingly. “He does not follow the good ways but manipulates the emperor to his own advantage. I will lead you by a secret passage out of Narrissor that I and only a few others know. Then we will go and see the emperor in person, explain to him how Krythar is using him, and return the world to peace.”
“Not to the emperor,” Alik argued. “The shards being, inexisting him.” Alik heaved frustratedly and waved his hands. “Not emperor.”
“It must be to the emperor,” Deran replied. “The shards are order and life.”
“They destroyed my father for the shards! Order? Life? Not to him, not ever!”
“You will change your mind...if only you knew him,” Deran said.
“I seen’d all I needing,” Alik responded. “Promise.”
Deran bit his lip. “If there is no other way,” he answered, “then yes.” Pinuvel looked up in surprise but was soon mollified. “I will show you the way out; then you must go on your own, for I cannot follow you any longer.”
Alik sighed painfully. “Sorry,” he said.
Deran hefted his knapsack and signaled to Pinuvel and Xetress. “Put your shoes and cloak on anyway, Alik; carry the rest.”
...From the hidden gate, down, down, deep through Narrissor,
Past Tenebriabula and the Heart of Night, over the straits
Into the pits and crags, Channon was brought by Narrissor’s rebellion
To that cave where now he rests, to restore the rock elves’ foundered hopes.
Deran led the small group through a series of twisting passages leading generally upwards, tapping the walls at intervals with his knuckles. He did not speak a word. Then suddenly he stopped, pressed his hand against the wall, and opened a narrow, hidden doorway onto a winding stair. “This is it,” he said taciturnly.
Alik glanced into it. The faint echo of a drake’s cry and of flowing water came from above, and Alik looked to Deran.
“Naryatha Cavern is opposite this wall,” Deran explained. “Krythar will miss us there.” Pinuvel led the way, then Alik and Deran went, then Xetress followed behind, closing the door.
The stairway wound around and around, up, up, up, until it finally dead-ended on a narrow balcony. Pinuvel felt around on the wall, located a secret latch, and opened the door. Alik came out...and was at once surrounded by a flock of motley, steel-eyed drakes. Alik turned toward Deran with a wordless, withering gaze.
...Up out of the caves and hidden depths against the goblin guards
Channon lead all Narrissor, painting the halls with goblin blood.
The conquerors, consumed by war and conquest’s treasures, fell in hosts
As soon as stood; and finally were driven without quarter to the gate,
Where winter with its chilling breath presaged things more terrible to come
Though then with cheers the soldiers of Narrissor hailed Channon the Deliverer,
And he with blood-flushed sword inscribed the words that yet remain
Over the arching gates of Narrissor: “Hope is liberation.”
Yet even then the emperor of the north, the goblin Kraage, approached
With greater numbers, thinking the first to fortify who now were carrion.
With the first breath of the snow he viewed Channon’s bold engraving
And scattered the city sentries from their posts in disarray.
Then Channon with his heroes stood before the gate, their swords afresh
But crying out yet to be gorged, as the ocean to its rivers ceaseless cries.
They stood, with the wind driving silvery snowflakes through their hair,
And gazed together over the promises of that heavenly plain of glory.
Deran stepped into the Naryatha Cavern behind Alik with Xetress with him, and slowly, deliberately, closed the door. The drakes prodded Alik in the direction of General Krythar, who was standing, waiting, just on that side of the bridge over the Channath Current.
“I’ve done my part, General,” Deran spoke.
“And sha’ be we’ paid by Emperor Morin’s gratitude,” Krythar replied. “Where the shard is?”
“With the boy,” Deran answered. “And if you don’t mind, I would like the favor of giving it to the emperor in person.”
“You wi’ be a great burden to me,” Krythar answered. “You wi’ not be granted to rift in this way.”
“I don’t want to,” Deran assured him.
“Very good, then,” Krythar granted. “We must a’so be st
opping for visiting of Thaurim.”
“Of course,” said Deran coldly.
“Come here, boy,” General Krythar ordered Alik.
“Te syuvr yuq’n!” Alik shouted.
...Like burning lava as it meets the raging sea the goblin hordes
Charged against the late-victorious elves, churning the waves
And by the defenders’ stern battle being froze to stone:
And on the brink stood Channon, mighty with his slashing sword ablaze.
Before either Krythar or Deran could steel themselves for what came next, water erupted in every direction from the Channath Current, emptying the riverbed and leaping like lightning rays all over the cavern. The drakes surrounding Alik were each of them caught and hurtled senselessly across the wide cavern to the walls. Krythar was bowled over and Deran only barely managed to avoid a stream of water so powerful it crushed the secret door behind him into meal.
Alik dashed for the river but at the brink of it, as though from out of nowhere, the pure-blood rock elf Xetress tackled him. The two rolled down the steep embankment to the floor as the tidal waves of the emptied river flowed back in on itself from both directions at once. Alik shouted at the approaching waves but his words were muffled by the rock elf’s hand, and he was pulled nimbly back up the bank just as the waves met beneath him.
By this time Krythar had managed to get back to his feet and regroup the drakes, and they came down in a swarm at Alik as he struggled with Xetress on the bank. Alik fell to the ground, pulling Xetress down on top of him as they struck. “Call them off, Krythar!” shouted Deran—but too late: the drakes were already tearing into Xetress ravenously to get to Alik. The luckless rock elf was a bloody wreck even before the waves came up like fists, smashing the drakes back and forth.
...On every side Narrissor’s children bled; and still came on the goblins;
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