“We are near.” She looks in front of the group. “The next landmark should be soon.” She gives a small skip. “And after that, there is only one more!”
It is good to be able to see her happy face. She is so close to finishing her task. She and her mother have brought us right up to the ancient site. The speakers of the land have done their part.
I realize that Quondam Azrial and Praetor Thurifer played their part too. And my mother. She is the one who started this journey. She is the one who told the quondam that it had to be now.
For the first time I realize why my mother let go of that girder, back in the dome. Her part was done. She could never have come with me on this journey; her health would not have allowed it. She would probably have been responsible for us being captured, because I could never have left her behind. And she knew that. She knew very well how much I loved her. My hands go to my mouth. She did it for me! She let go so that I would have a chance to get to Kelfor.
My eyes have filled with tears. Kalyka notices. She slips her small hand into mine. “Remeny?”
I press my lips together and wish the tears out of my eyes. I don’t want the others to notice. So I push the picture of my mother away, feeling slightly guilty as I do. It isn’t that she didn’t love me enough; it is because she loved me too much. The tears come back. I choke up inside.
Kalyka is hugging my waist. I shake my head, half laughing, half crying. “Come on, Kally. We are nearly there now!” I slip her up, over my shoulders. “Golly, you weigh a lot!”
Furian has joined us. He transfers Kalyka to his own, broader shoulders and smiles at me. “We are close.”
His presence calms me, enables me to let go of the sadness. I try to smile back. It feels good. “Did you ever think we could get here?”
His long hair follows his head as he shakes it. “Never. I thought they were crazy even to contemplate it.”
“Is there really a way to travel between the stars?”
His eyes flash with humor. “Now that I don’t know. That is the province of the orthomancers.”
My province. Except I have no lore and no knowledge. I have absolutely no idea what I am supposed to do.
I am silent for the rest of the day.
We sleep only for a few hours. The tunnels have been getting wider and wider and it has been easier to make out faces. It is not like being outside though; you have to fill in outlines with your imagination.
As we go, we are beginning to come across individual trees. At first only one or two traces, then half a log, then a complete tree. Then we see clusters of trunks until finally we reach the first one which has remained upright.
We see it glowing in front of us long before we come up to it. We stare. It glistens in red, in orange and in yellow. Each crystalline part making up the trunk sparkles with color. The bottom of the trunk and the top are buried in rock. Only the center part has survived.
Kalyka runs up to the trunk and tries to hug it. It is so much bigger than she is that she can get no curvature to her arms. It is like an enormous glowstick, standing as a beacon to Kelfor. It luminesces so much that Kally’s small face is lit with a warm light. Her skin gleams too. I join hands with her, but we still cannot encompass the tree. Only when Linnith joins us can her left hand touch Kalyka’s right. This is a big tree. Or was. Now it is a mass of crystallized rock that replaced the living cells.
After that the day gets clearer, because of the increased number of trees lighting our path. Some we need to clamber over as they lie scattered at angles across our path. Some are vertical, or nearly vertical. All give us light, illuminating the tunnel we are walking through, which is becoming vaster and vaster. We are still going downhill, but the terrain is much easier. The base of the tunnel is smooth rock, broken more and more often by the trees.
Linnith is carefully looking around her, always checking on our progress. Eventually she holds up her hand. “This is the final landmark.” There are three divisions up ahead. “It is the most important.” She signals to the smallest of the three tunnels. “It is that way.”
“Are you sure?” Vannis is wrinkling his nose. Of course, he would think he knows better than a speaker of the land. “I would have thought we should take the larger tunnel.”
Linnith is serene. She is sure. “This is the last tell. The most important. And there is a small saying which goes with it.”
That gets all our attention.
She takes a breath: “Kelfor welcomes only those who are ordained. Those who are not will find only darkness.” She gives a small shiver. “I have no idea what it means.”
Furian shrugs. “Let’s see if we are ordained or not.” He strides off along the smallest tunnel.
Vannis, still looking dubious, follows. He and Ammeline exchange a look of distrust. They would have gone onward, following the larger tunnel which is still lined with the light-giving trees. We are branching off into a smaller passageway. It is covered with long strings which hang down from the roof of the tunnel and almost touch the floor. They shimmer, but do not give out so much light.
As we push through these strings, they rip at our clothes; they are sharp, jagged. They are lines of small crystals which break off easily as we pass.
Linnith is looking back over her shoulder. “We must try not to break them,” she says. “They are roots from large trees over our heads. To break any brings ill fortune.”
Vannis and Ammeline both look upward and roll their eyes. They don’t believe in such superstitions. Yet Vannis’s eyes have tracked to Furian and he begins to move forward with more care. Now the roots are still whole as we carefully edge through them. Linnith’s shoulders relax. Her task is done.
The roots cover the tunnel for about two miles, slowly thinning out before disappearing altogether. The going gets much easier.
Linnith is excited. “The end of the way is exactly one hour’s walk from here!”
Kalyka dances out in front of us. She windmills around the tunnel, still visible from the waning light of the roots. “An hour! We are nearly there!”
It gets blacker and blacker again as we walk. It really doesn’t feel as though we are getting nearer to anything. The tunnel is narrowing, too. We cannot walk quickly. There is the occasional luminescence of a tree trunk close to the surface of the rock, but none which cross our path directly. The tunnel is hard to walk along, too, because the floor of it has now become jagged. The rock is corrugated; you have to put your foot on the top part of each rut. If you don’t, your foot slips into the narrow hollow between each ridge, and it can get stuck very easily.
Walking between furrows you can’t see is not only fraught with difficulty, it hurts the bottom of your feet as well. By the time the hour is over, nobody is smiling any more. Our lips are tight and we are simply wishing for the ordeal to come to an end.
When it does, we wish that it hadn’t.
A black sheet of solid rock has curved around from the sides of the tunnel to seal the way ahead. This tunnel is thoroughly, totally and wholly blocked. There are no crevasses or cracks. There is not a glimmer of light. We have come to the end of our adventure. And we have not found Kelfor.
I hear, rather than see, Linnith sink to the ground. Then I hear her whispering.
“Kelfor welcomes only those who are ordained. Those who are not will find only darkness.”
What can that mean? Is there some way to move onward? Or has the whole of this long journey been for nothing? I join Linnith on the ground. She must have made a mistake. I mutter to her.
She grasps me by the shoulders. She gives me a little shake. “There is no mistake. But what happens now is not the responsibility of the speakers of the land. We have spoken. Our job is done. Now it is the turn of the ordained to show us the final steps into Kelfor. Kelfor is only for the ordained.”
I have a sudden, lowering feeling. I am horribly afraid I know what she is about to say.
“And the only ordained are the orthomancers.”
I wa
s right. She said it.
I try not to hyperventilate. The moment I have been dreading has arrived. It is my turn. What in Hethor am I supposed to do? Everything has gone suddenly very, very quiet. All I can hear is my own heart thumping in my throat. I swallow. My mouth is very dry. I close my eyes. I guess it is time to find out if I am one of the ordained or not.
14.
Five hours later we are still at the wall. Inspiration has not come and the others are starting to lose confidence in me. I am glad it is dark here. They cannot see my face, and, better, I cannot see theirs. I don’t want to witness their disappointment. They have all risked their lives to get here ... even Vannis and Ammeline.
Vannis can’t be seen, but he is making himself heard. There are periodic little shuffles and then he blows out air. He is not satisfied with his new orthomancer.
Maybe it is a trick? Maybe we should go back to the bigger chambers, the ones with the trees which are lanterns in the dark? I am nearly ready to get up when the words Linnith spoke seem to reverberate around my head. The speakers of the land have not faltered in this entire journey. It is inconceivable that they could have made a mistake over this very last part. No, this must be the right path. This must be the way into Kelfor.
A small hand slips into mine. Kalyka tugs on my fingers. I lean down to listen to her.
“The amulet. You have forgotten the amulet.”
I tighten my grasp without thinking and she gives a small whimper. Of course! The amulet! I pull it out and over my head. Immediately I can see better than before. Kalyka’s head is vaguely traceable beside me, reflected in some light which seems to be coming from the locket. I bend my head down to examine it, aware of commentaries from the others, who have all come closer to observe where the tenuous light is coming from. There are murmurs of surprise.
Vannis makes a grab at my hand, taking the amulet. “Here! Let me see that!”
The light disappears as soon as the ornament leaves my hand. There is silence. Furian clears his throat.
“Perhaps you should return that, Vannis?”
I feel the amulet being pushed back into my hand. It glows again.
Linnith is excited. “That must be what the saying means! Yes! The amulet has some part in all this, and it can only be seen by someone of orthomancer blood!”
All very well, but what am I supposed to do next? Gingerly, I move the amulet up and down in front of me, trying to judge if there are any changes in the light. There aren’t. I bite my lip. I can’t see this coming to a good conclusion.
For some reason, I think of Torch. He carried this amulet all through the desert for me. I have to make it all count. I just have to.
But, however high I raise it, nothing happens. I use the light it gives off to examine every part of the wall in front of me, but there are no hidden entrances. All the walls are completely solid. So is the floor of the tunnel.
Yet the amulet is shining. It didn’t before. It must mean something. I haven’t looked hard enough.
I move around ten paces back, and stand behind the amulet, pointing it around me as if it were a water diviner. Only it is not water I need it to find. I squeeze my eyes shut and then open them. I want them to be rested, ready to detect the slightest difference in light. This amulet is the answer to the riddle. It has to be. There is no other plan.
At first, I can detect no variation in the light. Then I realize that it flares very slightly when I raise it toward the ceiling of the tunnel. My heart gives a thump of elation, making me momentarily faint. I lift it higher. Again I am sure that I see a small increase in the amount of light.
“I saw that too!” Ammeline has lost the petulance in her voice. “To the right! It seems strongest to the right.”
I follow her suggestion, and it does seem to me that the light flares again. I move a few steps away from the center of this cave at the end of the tunnel. The glow is definitely stronger now. My disembodied hand is clear in the dark.
The blood is thudding through my veins. At last we seem close to something! I wait for a few moments, then try to find an even better position.
It responds. The whole of the amulet is warm to the touch now. Its golden colors are heating my skin. It is alive in my hand, eager to continue.
I move further to the right and it answers instantly. It tugs me further in that direction. Then it seems to want me to raise my hand higher, nearer and nearer to the roof, which lowers at the edge of the small cavern to meet the walls only a little above my shoulder.
At last I see them. Two tiny holes in the surface of the rock face. I can barely detect them as I run my fingers over them. I look closer and discover another two holes only a thumb span apart from the first two. They are artificial and seem to penetrate the rock quite deeply.
The amulet, when held up to the holes, is alight with fire. It glistens against the ebony wall, shimmering in the dark.
I catch my breath, because as I raise the amulet I realize something. The amulet is flat and almost ovaloid in shape, but has four golden points curving underneath its complex pattern.
I turn the ornament slowly. Because now I know what it is. It is a key. The puzzle was easy, after all. I turn the amulet on its side and slowly bring the golden points to the holes I have found, just above where the roof of the cave meets the walls. There is no doubt in my mind. I just know that they are going to fit into place.
And they do. The small cavities in the wall must be curved slightly, facing inward. The four points of the amulet have been made to penetrate into those four holes. They slide in as if this strange lock had only been oiled yesterday. There is only one moment when the amulet resists, pushing back against my hand. I give it a slight push to overcome the resistance. There is a sharp click which resonates in the tunnel. The amulet sinks into the wall until the points are completely buried.
I turn to the others. I leave my hand where it is, scared to interfere in some way with whatever this process is.
Kalyka runs up to hug me. Zivan gives me a nod. Furian and Doven are grinning all over their faces. Linnith is clapping. Even Ammeline and Vannis are impressed; they can’t hide it.
Nothing happens immediately. Then a scraping noise sounds somewhere behind the rock. It startles us, but not as much as what happens next. There is a muffled crump and a shower of rock falls from some way behind us down the tunnel. We all duck involuntarily. About ten yards back, where the roof of the tunnel is much higher, a large hole has appeared in the solid ceiling. Light is streaming through it, impacting on the dust which is blossoming out due to the explosion which has caused the roof to fall.
It’s impossible not to cringe away from the sound and the cloud of dust. We all try to hide our nose and mouths with our tunics as the air becomes thick and hard to breathe.
Furian is the first to make his way over to the hole in the roof. He climbs onto some of the rubble, leaps upward and then pulls himself through the gap in the ceiling of the tunnel. Moments later his face appears.
“This has to be the Forest of Flame,” he shouts down. “This has to be the way into Kelfor. Come on!”
The others run forward. Doven, despite his injury, manages to get Kalyka onto his shoulders so that Furian can pull her up. Then Furian uncoils one of the few ropes still around his body and Linnith pulls herself up, helped by both men.
Ammeline is next. Vannis waits at the bottom, nodding to Doven to make his way up through the opening.
Doven takes some time, because he needs muscles which have been badly damaged, but manages finally to pull himself over the rim and up into the bright lights I can see above us.
Vannis turns to me. “We are the last. Coming?” He stretches out one hand.
I am still touching the amulet. I don’t know what to do. Should I leave it in the rock or should I take it with me? I look back at Vannis.
He shrugs. “Oh, bring it. You don’t know that you won’t need it in the future.”
I hesitate, but what he says is true. It might be s
omething we need. I decide that, if it comes out easily, then I shall take it with me.
The amulet slides out of the four holes with almost no friction. This is enough to convince me of the rightness of the decision. I run up to the pile of rubble which marks the opening to the Forest of Flame, make a leap for the rope hanging down, and pull myself quickly up to safety above.
Vannis only waits until Furian stretches over to pull me up. I watch as he starts the climb.
There is another crump, this time causing all the rock around me to shake. Vannis gives a shout. Furian reaches quickly down. I grab Furian as his feet slip. We struggle like that as fate decides whether to kill or spare Vannis, then he shoots out of the hole, stumbles on the edge and falls flat into the new chamber.
A smoking cloud of dust hurtles out of the hole he has just come through. We throw ourselves to one side as small pieces of rock follow. Then there is the roar of an explosion, which has taken its time to travel along the passageway to us. This is followed by another huge bang, the clatter of hundreds of tons of rock falling, a shaking underfoot so great that those of us still standing fall down, and then ... a long time later ... silence.
After a prudent wait Furian raises his head. He shuffles to the edge of the hole down into the tunnel underneath us, the one we have just left. He dips his head into the gap and looks down.
“Well!” He gets back up after only a few seconds, dusting his hands down on his tunic. “We won’t be going back that way. The tunnel behind has been collapsed. The Scoriats won’t be getting through it either, however long they might dig.”
For a few seconds I feel pleased. Then a cold realization seeps into my brain. We won’t be getting out? I stare at the locket. Have I just doomed the whole expedition? Did that explosion happen because I removed the amulet from its keyhole?
I pick myself off the floor once the dust settles. The others are doing the same. We are all examining our new surroundings. We seem to be in a small tunnel with little light of its own, leading off—
Kelfor- the Orthomancers Page 23