by Kara Timmins
Eloy turned forward to face the darkness ahead. The smell of mineral-rich water hung heavy in the passageway. He felt around in his bag until his fingers found the familiar dome of the little shell lantern that had helped him so many times before. Piecing it together in the dark wasn’t hard. Finding the little lump of moss and fat and lighting it was, but he got it done. He didn’t have much of the moss left, just enough to light the path ahead.
Slick white stone made up the walkway from floor to ceiling. The walls rose up and rounded overhead in an arch. Flecks of iridescence in the stone reflected the firelight.
Eloy walked on. The water continued to flow around his feet, but he barely noticed it now. There was something ahead, a wisp of light. The little flame in the lantern flickered, and he hoped the light ahead was an opening, or something he could use. The lantern wouldn’t last much longer.
He walked on, and the light ahead grew. The illumination became more of a glow. He noticed that something had changed: his stride was no longer moving with the flow of water. When he lowered the lantern down toward the ground, there was just enough flame left to see what had happened to the stream. The rainwater hadn’t dwindled or fallen away; instead the path he was on had risen, creating two canals on either side, diverting the water into two smaller rivers.
His wet shoes squished as he continued. The little flame died, the aroma of its familiar burn competing against the mineral wetness of the passageway. Eloy was still walking in mostly darkness, but the light ahead was now enough he could make his way safely by it. His shadow stretched tall behind him as he got closer. The light ahead came from an open doorway.
He saw it grow larger with every step. The disconnect between his body and his perception was like a dream. A burst of fresh air reached out from the open doorway. Everything ahead looked so bright. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light of the room, but when they did, his consistent stride stalled. He stumbled, barely noticeable. Once he recovered, he crossed over the threshold with a quickened pace.
A circle of light shone down on the center of the expansive room, and something on a platform glimmered. It was the most beautiful place Eloy had ever seen. He walked to the center, stood under the rays of sunlight, and looked up. He didn’t see any rainclouds swirling above, and the warmth cut through his clothes and spread over his skin. When he looked down, he saw light curls of steam coming off his body. Warmed and ready, he turned his attention to the item on the white stone pedestal.
A chalice unlike any he had ever seen rested in the center. The cup was clear as the cleanest stream and threw the colors of the shining light in the same way. Little cuts in its surface split the light, sprinkling the white platform with an array of reds, greens, blues, and purples. The cup was wide, about as wide as his waist, and shallow, no deeper than his hand was long. He placed his hands on both sides of the cup. The crystal was warm, even warmer than he thought it would be sitting under the sun, so warm that the burn was almost painful. He lifted, but it didn’t budge. Something about the chalice was his way forward, that was clear, but he didn’t know what he was supposed to do.
The answer was in the rest of the room. He turned his attention to focus on the intricacies of the other things that filled the space. The two streams of rainwater he had seen before continued into the big room, diverting further as they crossed into the light. One broke right, the other left, and they ran parallel to one another next to the walkway to the center of the room. The streams bowed outward around the chalice on the podium. Eloy looked ahead to see where the flow of water ended and saw that the two streams straightened out a few strides after the podium. The streams ran through two openings at the base of a blank wall.
The items that adorned the walls on either side of him were stunning. Both flanking walls had shelves from floor to ceiling made of the same white stone. He counted eight shelves, each one displaying a row of stone cups all different colors and sizes. All looked to be cut from raw minerals and were formed and polished into goblets. The light shone through ones that were blood red, deep ocean blue, and summer bird yellow. Their light colored the white walls behind them. Some were so small that they would barely hold a thimble of liquid, while others were big enough to hold a full pouch of water.
Eloy leaped across the stream on his right and walked to the shelves for a closer look. The colors of the cups were even more mesmerizing up close. He picked one up that was just big enough to cradle an egg and looked at it under the sunlight. It was a deep forest green, with striations of iridescent blue that revealed themselves as he turned it over in his hand.
He put it back and moved on, picking up another that was the palest silver, with iridescent ribbons shimmering within. He wanted to hold them all. From the one as red as iron-rich earth to the one at its side, a golden wheat yellow, each was just as unique and captivating as the last.
They weren’t what he had come all this way for, surely. The stone burned against his chest. He pulled the repaired leather cord over his head and held it out in front of him, looking at it in the sun. He thought about what Francena had said, when he’d first told her the story of the stone in the camp by the Bowl so long ago. He looked back at the silver cup, thinking of how she had described it: like moonlight. Eloy looked back at the stone, now spinning on the cord in front of his face.
Of course: his key. Eloy dropped his arm to his side, the stone swung at his knee, and he looked at the cups on the shelves with new eyes. One step at a time, he scanned them up and down, looking for a cup that was the same color as his stone. After a few feet, he saw one. It was small, barely big enough to hold a gulp of water. It sat high up on one of the shelves, and he almost missed it. He had to climb on the lower shelves to reach it, and he was worried the stone slats wouldn’t hold him, but they did.
He grabbed the little cup and jumped down. He knew it wasn’t right even before his feet hit the ground. It didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like anything. When he looked at it in the light, he saw that its surface was more brown than black. He reached out to put it on the shelf in front of him, crowded between a cup shimmering gold and one as blue as deep ocean water, but stopped himself before the base touched the shelf, climbed back up, and put it back where he had found it.
And he continued. Searching, giving each cup an assessing scan. And then he ran out of shelves on the right side of the room.
He was getting close. He looked across the room. He saw it on a middle shelf on the left side, black as night even while bathed in sunlight. His quickened breath sounded loud in the empty, unpadded room. Eloy ran to the other side, leaping over the two streams in stride with his run. His advancement stopped just short of the cup.
It was about the same size as the wooden cup he had used with Midash all those years ago, the night he had found out his stone was once Aerelion’s. How could he have missed it? Now that he had it in his sight, it seemed to sing out, as if to say, “You found me! Finally! You’re here!”
Eloy looked down at the stone swinging at his side, the leather cord woven between his fingers. He had a sense that he was at a boundary, on the edge of crossing over into a place of change. It felt unexpectedly sad. He held the stone next to the cup and felt a warmth emanating off the key that he could feel against his wrist. He took a breath and wrapped his hands around the cup. It warmed to his touch and spread energy through his arms.
The stone went cold, its purpose spent.
Eloy took them both to the center of the room and let the sun fall on them. He shifted them back and forth in his hands, looking at the light catch the red and green flecks. The stone was just as beautiful as the first time he had seen it when he was a boy. He knew Amicus was telling the truth when he said the trinket was magic, that the stone was a key to something amazing.
Eloy put the cup on the ground next to the podium and brought the stone up to his lips. Its surface was still smooth, even after everything that had ha
ppened while it rested against Eloy’s chest. It had never felt this cold in the hundreds of times before when he had held it up to his skin. Amicus had said that the stone would be worthless as soon as it had served its purpose, but to Eloy, it hadn’t become insignificant. It would always be the embodiment of what pushed him on for so long.
He secured the repaired knot in the cord and looped it back over his head. He tucked it under his shirt and touched its familiar outline against his chest.
Now it was the cup at his feet that pulled at his attention. Its energy seemed impatient; the antithesis to the stone. When he picked it up, he could have sworn he heard an actual hum come from it, like a purr. The success he felt from piecing together the importance of the stone and finding the cup was dwindling at a rapid rate. He turned the cup over in his hands. What did it mean? What did it do? He looked around the room again.
What do cups do?
There seemed to be only one answer. He crouched next to one of the streams and dipped the cup into it, filling it with the clear water. The rim of the cup was warm against his bottom lip. His heart raced again. He thought of the Vaylar who had eaten the strange berry from the forest of Valia. Would he have a similar reaction? Would it change him? He didn’t have another choice. He tipped the cup back and took a drink.
He waited.
His eyes darted back and forth as he assessed his body for any change. Even thinking about what might happen from drinking the strange water made him feel nauseous. He was making himself feel sick. The moments stretched on. Nothing happened.
He waited long enough that he was sure the water wasn’t special. He looked down at the now-empty cup and then back up at the cutout in the ceiling. The sun hadn’t shifted. How long had he been roaming around the room? Enough time should have passed to shift the light, but it still shone down on the clear, shallow chalice on the podium. Whatever the solution was, it had to have something to do with both cups.
Eloy tried lifting the clear chalice again, but it still didn’t budge. He wouldn’t be able to fill it like he had the one made of stone. He looked around at the different cups. They were all different sizes, each one unique. He could move each cup on the shelves, but not the one at the center. Then there was the water. The very regular water.
Eloy crouched down and filled the black cup up again. This time, he filled it to the brim. Carefully, he moved it to the clear chalice and poured the water into it. He waited. Nothing happened. He put both hands on either side of the podium and stared down into the water.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said.
His face was close to the cup, close enough that his words disturbed the water. Little ripples danced across the once placid surface. A memory pushed its way forward in the crowd of his thoughts, one he didn’t want from a time he didn’t want to revisit.
The rain on the marsh hadn’t been warm and soothing like the rain here. The rain in the fight with the Vaylars had been cold and vicious. Maybe the day had made it seem that way. Eloy and the others had made the Vaylars turn back that night. They defied what the Omnacom had told them. Eloy and the others had done it with trickery. They’d made it seem like they had magic when they had none. They had used sound.
Eloy reached up and removed his sword from its sheath. He put the leather-wrapped handle against the rim of the chalice, just as the fighters had done with their shields that night. He tried to remember how they had done it. He gulped and ran the leather grip around the lip of the chalice. It sang. Little waves danced in rings from the outer edge to the center. He ran the handle around once, twice, three times. The tone rang out, ricocheting off the stone walls, a sound that was almost deafening. A great crash made Eloy jump backward, the singing still reverberating through the clear cup. The wall in front of him, opposite the one he had walked through, crashed to the ground like glass.
The ringing continued, but when he took a few steps forward and looked down at the clear chalice, he saw that the ripples in the water had stopped. The sound was trapped in his ears. He put his sword back in its sheath.
The pathway ahead, which had once ended at a stone wall, now continued further. Eloy walked forward a few steps before he realized he still had the black cup in his left hand. Little cracks now spread out on its finish like lightning, its job done. Eloy tucked the cup into his bag.
No more keys. No more trinkets. No more puzzles. There wasn’t anything left to do but walk forward and take what was his.
64
The shards of the stone wall crunched under Eloy’s shoes as he crossed over the threshold into the next hallway. He still couldn’t see what was ahead. This passageway was very much like the first one he had walked through, except for the absence of the streams of rainwater, which drained down two holes on the other side of the now-fallen wall. He moved on through the stone hallway.
He curved around a bend, and when he did, the world went black.
His breath caught in his chest, and he blinked hard against the darkness. Thoughts of the Omnacom sent shots of fear down his limbs. He stepped backward from the bend and found light again, taking deep breaths to try and calm his heart. Light wasn’t supposed to cut off at a simple bend. Even indirect illumination should be enough to see his way.
But this wasn’t a normal hallway, and this wasn’t a normal place. Keep going.
If only Timyr were here. If only Neasa and Malatic could be at his side. Or Corwin. Goodwin. Francena. Evas. He could always take the next step when he had them at his side. His heart had calmed, but now it hurt. They weren’t coming. He had to go forward alone.
Eloy straightened his back, lifted his chin, and moved forward alone, into the dark. The first step was the hardest. The phantom of the Omnacom seemed to hang just out of reach in the dark. Sweat made his clothes cling to his body, even though a cool breeze ran over him. The thought of the walls closing in barged into his mind uninvited. His mouth went dry and he could hear his heartbeat thump in his ears, but he kept walking.
One step, then another. He kept going. The scrape of his feet against the stone fell into a lonely rhythm.
Then he saw a glow ahead. A sweet, spicy smell rolled out like a thick fog. He took a deep breath of relief. The fragrance reminded him of the spices that had been for sale in Ocupan. He stopped walking and inhaled. All of the steps he had taken, the choices he had made, the challenges he had faced, were all behind him.
There were only a few more steps left to take now. It felt unreal.
He continued to another doorway, a simple wooden barrier with a basic iron ring handle. The golden light coming through the hallway found its way through the gaps between the wood. Eloy reached out, grabbed hold of the ring, and pulled.
The room stretched on and on in front of him. A strip of glass ran from one end of the ceiling to the other, letting in the golden light of sunset. In all the times he had imagined the room Amicus had promised him, he never could have imagined that the endless bounty would look like this. Even the boundless imagination of a child couldn’t do the reality justice. The room was bigger than Eloy could even comprehend.
He walked inside. The warmth wrapped around him in the same comforting way he’d felt in Midash and Kella’s hearth room. He walked through mounds of gold coins, some stacked, others piled high like prairie hills, others in overflowing grain sacks. Gems in all colors glittered and grabbed the warm light from the sky, throwing it back in an arrayed rainbow. And the treasure didn’t end or begin with coins and jewels. Eloy ran his hands over bushels of spices, some as yellow as spring pollen or as black as a crow feather. Their aroma plumed through the air, adding to the sense of warmth and familiarity.
Eloy walked on. Fabrics of all shades and textures rolled together and piled high like scrolls. He reached out and ran a piece of a swatch of purple material through his fingers. It was the softest cloth he had ever felt. Up close, he could see intricate stitching, little leaves sewn
out of gold thread.
Beyond the fabrics, Eloy found ornate figurines of iron and silver. He saw shields more elaborate than he had ever seen—dwarfing even those in the private quarters of Anso or Nicanor—detailing trees, fish, and birds. He saw a few swords, too, but not many. When he examined the blades, he remembered where he had seen them before; they were the same ones he had wanted while walking around the Ocupan. He remembered thinking that he would be able to have everything he saw once he found his treasure. And here they were. He re-sheathed the sword and put it back on the carved wood holder made to cradle it.
Moving on, he found stacks of leather-bound books. He had never seen so many books in one place before. Neasa had a few at her house in Valia, gifts from her traveling father, no doubt, and Eloy had seen some at Pup’s house, but none of those were like these. Eloy picked one off the top of the stack. Its binding was dark red, shiny, and soft. He opened the front cover, stiff in its newness, and the dusty, earthy smell of the pages fanned toward his face as he flipped through them. His eyes ran over the inky letters, each penned word perfect in their curves and lines. The front page of the book read: “The Life and Adventures of Turnwell Wise.” Eloy didn’t recognize the name. He closed the book, careful to be gentle with the fragile pages, and put it back on the stack. How many stories filled those books, he wondered. How many had he never heard before?
He stared ahead. The path forward was clear, but everywhere else was covered in more things that sparkled or reflected the golden light in a dizzying array. It really was stunning. The room was filled with everything he had ever wanted, probably quite literally.
He looked back at the door from which he had come, maybe thirty or forty strides back, fewer than it felt like he had walked, and yet there was still so much more ahead. What else would he uncover?
This was the end of everything he had worked for. He scanned the riches, taking little steps as he turned himself around, taking it all in. Flecks of dust floated through the rays of light, and the sweet, spicy smell of the room swirled around him. He waited for the part he had been looking forward to the most. He waited for the joyous sense of accomplishment, of success, of finality. He wanted the jubilation, the elation. He had it all now: every jewel and coin he had wanted when he was a boy.