by Candy Rae
“You hold on to me,” Urieline instructed. “As tight as you can.”
“You can count on me holding on so tight as you won’t believe,” declared Aranel, eyeing the swift-flowing river with trepidation. “You sure there isn’t another way? A bridge or something?”
“It might be watched.”
Aranel supposed it couldn’t be helped. They would have to swim.
“Let’s do it then,” she said, squaring her shoulders.
* * * * *
Crossing the Tarquel River was, when Aranel thought about it later, one of the most unpleasant and scary things she had ever had to do. She afterwards admitted that she was more scared the short time it took them to cross the river than she had ever been in her life before, even when she compared it with the battle against the Vikingr at the T’Quel.
The water was dark and fast-flowing and, because Urieline’s method of swimming involved a great deal of lunging, she found it extremely difficult to hang on. Her sword became more of a hindrance the further into the current they went, and halfway across Aranel began to wonder what she would do if she had a choice of hanging on or losing her weapon. She didn’t need to make the choice however because, just as her freezing cold hands wrapped in Urieline’s mane began to slip, she felt the unicorn’s movements alter as she scrabbled to find her footing when they neared the north bank.
Aranel would have much preferred to catch her breath and wring the water out of her clothes but Urieline wouldn’t let her. Before Aranel could begin untangling her hands from her mane she began to move up and away from the riverbank and into the tall, thin, jaggy-leafed trees that populated the lower mountain slopes in this part of the world. They were very like the ones close to the T’Quel Aranel noted as she ran beside Urieline, which, if she thought about it rationally, (she was feeling anything but rational at that moment) was quite natural. As the dragons flew, they were not, spatially all that far away.
Urieline didn’t stop until they had travelled inside the wood for a considerable distance. She kept up a steady trot while Aranel struggled to keep up. Then her legs gave out and Urieline found herself dragging Aranel. She stopped.
“Sorry. I wanted to make absolutely sure we could not be seen from the south bank,” she explained, puffing after all the exertions.
“You could have warned an elf,” said Aranel crossly. “The water was cold and my muscles are numb. I can hardly feel my fingers and as for my toes? Numb doesn’t begin to describe them.”
“You’re quite hot except for your extremities now though, are you not?” asked Urieline with unicorn humour that Aranel decided was very much misplaced in their present situation. She rummaged in her backpack and didn’t deign to provide an answer.
“Everything’s soaking wet but I’ve got a spare tunic which might be a little dry in spots, yes, here it is.”
She then proceeded to wring out the worst of the water before kneeling beside Urieline and rubbing her legs. She didn’t want the cold to get into the unicorn’s joints and for her to become lame. That would be a disaster.
“My thanks,” said Urieline.
“Anytime,” Aranel replied. Now that they had reached the north bank and comparative safety she was beginning to feel far more cheerful about life in general. She wasn’t a Water Elf to whom swimming was a part of life. Most Wood Elves preferred to be aboard a boat if they had to travel across water. “So where now?”
Urieline pointed with her nose.
“That way. Urien said to look out for a huge bush, not a tree, with pale green leaves and a sort of silvery sheen. Oh, and we must also stay as close to the cliff as we can. Urien said we might miss it otherwise. But I think we should wait until it gets more light.”
“Fair enough,” said Aranel, getting to her feet and hefting her backpack on to her shoulder again.
They set off to find somewhere to camp for what remained of the night. Eventually they found the somewhere, beside a small, bubbling brook with dawillow trees around. Aranel managed to find some nut-berries to eat. They filled her stomach and gave her a pleasant feeling of wellbeing. Urieline made a great swathe of destruction in the little blue flowers that carpeted the ground. Being sweet and tender, she ate perhaps rather more than she should have. Whilst she denuded the area of the blossoms, Aranel changed her clothes right down to her underthings. They weren’t completely dry but drier than the ones she had been wearing. She draped the very wet ones over some nearby bushes hoping that, when it was time to set off again, they would at least be moderately dry.
“At least we’ve got this far,” said Aranel, curling up at Urieline’s side and snuggling in.
In the morning, after they got up, they both ate some nut-berries and drank some of the clear stream water. Aranel had investigated the source of the stream before she had gone to sleep and found that the water emerged from some sort of natural gulley in the cliff itself and decided that it was safe to drink. It wasn’t just safe she decided after tasting it, it was delicious. She tipped out what remained in her water bottle and refilled it.
“When I am waiting for you,” decided Urieline with a swish of her tail, “I will wait for you here.”
“I’ll be able to find it again I’m sure,” agreed Aranel with a wicked glance at Urieline. “The fact that these flowers are here didn’t influence you at all, did it?”
“There are plenty more,” agreed Urieline, matching look for look.
Aranel was laughing as she packed her nearly dry clothes into her backpack, added her water bottle, and threw in a fair number of the nut-berries. Picking it up, she reached for her sword.
“Do you think I’ll be able to climb the cliff with this?” she asked, doubt in her voice. “I don’t want to have to leave it. I might need it.”
“Don’t worry about problems until they actually happen,” advised Urieline, leading the way out of their campsite.
Aranel shrugged and followed.
“There seems to be a faint outline of some sort of path,” said Aranel after they had travelled about a half a cian. “It’s pretty overgrown though. Just look at these stickies! They’re attaching themselves to my clothes in great clumps!” Aranel had to use her knife to hack a route through in some places. “No elf has been here for a long time.”
“And to my coat,” said a disgruntled Urieline, referring to the stickies. “You will have to brush them off when we get there.”
“I will,” promised Aranel. “Do you think it is much further to this cleft?”
“I hope not.”
They almost missed it. It was Urieline who noticed what looked like a slightly darker patch in the cliff wall peeking from between the trees. The trees were slightly thinner, as if they had taken root later.
“Aranel! Over there. The bush!”
“Where?” she called back, stopping in her tracks. “I don’t see. Which one?”
“Where I’m looking. Behind you, it must be the bush. We passed it and didn’t notice.”
Aranel turned and looked. Yes, that must be it. She began picking her way towards the base of the cliff. “It’s smaller than I expected,” she said.
Once she had reached the cleft she gazed up. The cleft was narrow and damp looking but she could see the beginnings of a stone stairway, reaching ever upwards, towards the cliff top.
She turned and smiled at Urieline.
“No time like the present,” she said. “I’d better get started. You’ll be at the dawillow copse?” She was looking at the pieces of loose slab and stones gathered at the bottom of the cleft.
“I will be there,” Urieline promised. “Call me from the top when you descend. I will hear you. I will come.”
Aranel hugged her. “Thank you,” she said in a muffled voice. “I couldn’t have got here without you.”
Urieline whiffled in her ear. It tickled and Aranel smiled as she turned away and took the last few steps to the base of the cleft. Once she had reached it she stopped and looked up.
It went up a lo
ng way, with many twists and turns.
She placed her foot on the first, rough step and began to climb.
* * * * *
By the time Aranel reached what she thought must be about a quarter of the way up her legs had begun to ache. By the time she was approaching halfway, they were more than just aching. They had begun to tremble.
She gritted her teeth and kept going. Just as she thought she couldn’t possibly take another step she saw a ledge, took another five painful steps and sank down.
She sat there, rubbing her legs and contemplated the second half of the climb. She knew she couldn’t wait long; her legs would stiffen up and would hurt worse so she ate some nut-berries, took a long slow swig out of her water bottle and stood up again.
She lifted her foot and began to climb again.
By the time she reached the top she was exhausted. Her breath was coming in quick gulps. She staggered away from the cliff edge and sank to the ground.
She knew she needed a little time to recover so she took it. Once her breathing was back to normal, she began to notice the faint outlines of a path that led away up a rise.
As she arrived at the top of the rise she stopped and looked, blinking in surprise.
The Fortress of Nosta was only a short distance away. She hadn’t expected that it would be situated so close to the edge of the cliff. Aranel dropped to the ground, at once wary. She had remembered what Urieline had said, that she thought there might be someone following them. Aranel would make sure she was alone up here before she ventured inside.
The fortress resembled a squat tower house; perhaps three stories high and made of dark stone. It didn’t have a roof. Her father had written that there had been signs of a fire. She supposed the roof had fallen in then.
I hope something remains, she was thinking as she scanned both the tower and the surrounding area for danger, otherwise I’ll never find the message Father left for me or where to look for this Tathar. She looked up at the sky. There was nothing up there except for a few birds, too small to be gryphwens.
“Well, it’s now or never,” she told herself as she stood up and began walking towards the building. As she drew closer she realised that it wasn’t in as ruinous a state as it had looked from further away. The window frames were mostly still intact, except for the top floor; the sun was glinting off those that still had glass in them and the front door, although open, looked as if it was still attached to its hinges.
At the door, she paused, alert for signs of danger. Her ears were telling her that there was nothing out of the ordinary in the vicinity, and her eyes and nose were sending her brain the same message, so, taking a deep breath, she entered the ruins. It was dark, which meant that the ground floor ceiling was still intact; the windows were letting in some light but not enough. She realised then that there were shutters on the windows so she walked over and opened the biggest one. Sunlight instantly lit up the room and she looked around. It was bare and there were signs of burning, as her father had written. All that remained of what furniture had been there were bits of charred wood and bundles of rough ash.
There was nothing here. The walls were bare.
The circular stairs up to the next floor, being made of stone, were intact so she decided to venture up.
This room was partially open to the sky in the north corner so there was no need to open the shutters. It was a strange place, she decided as soon as she saw it. The walls were carved with depiction after depiction of dragons. Some of them had been painted. She could make out traces of the pigment.
She examined every stone for clues but all she found were dragons. Then she crawled over every part of the floor. Nothing.
There’s no point. Father was here and he couldn’t work out where the Tathar had gone. Why should I do any better? I’ll never work it out.
She was feeling so despondent about her lack of progress that she began to cry tears of frustration. She felt like beating her hands on the floor, like a youngling having a tantrum. But I am a warrior, I will not. It must be here … somewhere, but where?
She raised her head to look at the damaged ceiling and gasped. Right in the middle was a carved circle and inside the circle was carved a dragon. It was damaged but the dragon’s front foreleg was pointing south.
Could the Tathar have gone to the Ndorenisgiathatch, to the Land of the Dragons? It was possible, and it was the only clue to his whereabouts, however nebulous, that she had. Even if he wasn’t there, perhaps the dragons would know where he had gone. That’s where she would go next she decided.
But finding out where the Tathar had gone was not the only reason she was here. Her father had told her he had left another message for her and she had to find it. She suspected that the first message had told her only some of the facts and details she would have to know and was sure this one would tell her more, at least she hoped so. Now, where to look?
What had he said? Aranel had by now read and re-read the message from the lodge so often that she knew it off by heart. What was it he had written that would help her find his message?
‘I have left further instructions for you there; you will know the location when you see it.’
“I will know it when I see it?”
Frowning, the perplexed Aranel scrutinised the room for something, anything she recognised. A memory began to come back to her, of an evening up in her father’s tower not long before she had left to join her Nosse. He had been trying to explain a system of writing used a long time ago, when the elven race was young. He had shown her a glyph, one that meant her name, Aranel. He had told her that it might be important one day and to remember what it looked like. It was a small circle with two sun shapes above it, connected to the circle by wavy lines, which he said represented the sea. Above the fireplace were carved a whole line of glyphs. She hurried over and scrutinised them, left to right. The one she was looking for was right at the end, a small carving of the same glyph he had shown her. She saw that the carving was not as worn as the others to its left.
She pressed it, not really expecting that it could be so easy. She was right – nothing happened. Then she noticed that the mortar around the stone was of a slightly different colour and texture than the rest. With her knife she began to dig at it. The mortar came out in lumps and she peered at the hole she had made yes, there it was, a tightly rolled piece of parchment. With trembling fingers she removed it and slipped it into her belt. She contemplated trying to put the mortar back but decided not to. She had been here in the fortress for quite some time. Her luck had held out so far but she didn’t want to take any chances by overstaying her welcome.
Suddenly uneasy, she decided she had better leave.
After a last, quick look around the room, she made for the stairs, ran down them two at a time and made for the door.
She had almost reached it when she stopped and looked at her hand. The round sapphire jewel in her ring was sparkling. The ring began to vibrate.
Trying to ignore it but still wondering what it meant, Aranel went outside but stopped, suddenly alert. There was menace in the air, she could feel it, and menace could only mean one thing, danger!
Aranel went hot and cold, all at once.
Then the ring began to tug at her, no, pull at her hand, and it was pulling, much to her consternation, not in the direction back to the cleft. It dragged her resisting body north, away from the fortress and the cleft, towards the mountain valley where the T’Quel sat. She tried to resist, to pull herself back but could not. Her ring hand in front of her, the panicking Aranel was travelling fast.
All of a sudden she found herself at the cliff edge and realised she wasn’t stopping. She was falling down, descending into the valley depths below.
* * * * *
She was falling to her death. Her body would hit the ground, what would be left of it a mess of broken bones, skin and blood. She closed her eyes and as she did she felt her fall slowing, felt mist envelop her.
She landed with an enormou
s thump that knocked the breath from her body. She wondered for a moment if she was alive but decided she must be. One didn’t feel pain like this when one was dead.
Strangely, although she felt sore and disorientated, she wasn’t scared. Sitting up, she tried to get her bearings and, with a start, realised exactly where she was.
As she began to regain at least a modicum of her equilibrium she realised that she was inside the T’Quel!
Her ring continued to sparkle and vibrate but at least it had stopped pulling at her. Then the vibrating stopped although it still sparkled.
Aranel remained sitting on the ground. She sat there for some time. The mist wasn’t thick and she could see the sky. This mist was a milky shade of white and there was no sign of any purple mist forming, nor of the swirling she had seen before the fight with the out-worlders.
What should she do? Should she try to extricate herself from the mist? What would happen if she tried? She decided not to. I’ll wait for a moment, she thought. See what happens.
Having decided that she wasn’t in any immediate danger, she took the note from her belt, opened it, and began to read.
‘To complete the circle, follow the path to there and here and there and now and back. Warrior ring shall know the path and warrior blue shall lead the way. Ten stones shall seal and divide. Ten are different and nine are same in twos then one. Three daughters of the line of the leader. Seek the one of the family of the other-born to complete the circle with the pure. Warrior brave, Wielder true, Whisperer loud. The Sacrifice …
Aranel, this is a copy of a section of a very old, ancient, parchment I found within the archives of the library of our home. I think it may be a very early edition of the Sage of Enduin. It was incomplete and indeed, was crumbling in my hands as I read it. I was lucky to be able to decipher as much as I did. When I read the words I knew it was important although, at the time, I did not realise how important it would become. I have been researching what it means ever since. I went to Nosta to consult the Tathar twice but he was gone the second time. There were signs of fighting, of burning, of disruption throughout the tower and its environs. That you have come here and are reading this means that I am no more and that you must take on the task. Solve the riddle that was written, Aranel. Find out what must be done. The Tathar explained very little when I met him. He should have told me more but he didn’t for whatever reason. Perhaps like me he didn’t realise, or want to realise the seriousness of the situation. Remember the old saying? Old elves are blind to the truth? Perhaps the description doesn’t fit the Tathar exactly but you will get my drift. I have, these last years, been searching for the truth on my own and what I have discovered is like a cold drench to my heart. The T’Quel is failing, I have come to understand this and the circle the words speak of must be put back together again so that the magic that keeps our world safe can be restored. The tarna, or jewels, the rhyme speaks of are, I am sure, the means by which the T’Quel can be restored. The round sapphire in my ring, which you have on your finger now, else you would not be reading this, is, I am confident, the warrior blue of which the document speaks. After all I am a warrior and so too are you. The red jewel and the green jewel? They both came into our family’s custody some years ago, by accident, through marriage. Though I do not believe in chance, it was certainly not meant that the three should be in the keeping of one family. Of the whereabouts of the others I am not definitely sure but the book will tell you if you know how to interpret it.’