“What?” She wondered what he’d thought she’d said to give such a response.
“There is no way of escape.”
“I suppose you thought that before Kelm and I came. But we found a way.”
“No,” he said. “We didn’t.”
Chills ran down her spine. Perhaps he simply suffered from the same lie that had tried to ensnare her mind just minutes ago. The Voice had been meddling in his mind, after all. “Yes—we did.”
“Then why are we back here?” His contempt slammed into her, solid as a ram.
Biting her lip, she stood. “Yes, we were caught again, but this isn’t the end. If anything, we’re stronger now than before.”
“He’ll be back,” Errance muttered, almost talking to himself. “He’ll be back, and I don’t have the strength to resist him. Defending myself took all the strength I had. It’s over.”
“No, it’s not!” She clenched her fists fiercely. “Ayeshune will help us.”
Errance surged to his feet. She did not need to see him to feel the heat of the wrath that suddenly exploded within him. “Ayeshune?” he snarled. “Since when has he ever helped?”
Stunned, she backed away, her own anger dimming in the fear of the unexpected violence so close by. “You don’t know that you’re saying,” she stammered. “Ayeshune cares.”
“Ayeshune cares?” Errance shouted. “Oh yes, he cares! He cares about his glorious purpose, his greater good! And people like me are left to writhe in agony, screaming for deliverance, and does he care then? Does he? DOES HE?” Out of the darkness, he grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a shake that rattled every bone in her body.
“Errance, let go!” she gasped. “Y-you’re not yourself!”
“Myself? You know nothing of me! You have no idea what I’ve gone through! None of you do! It’s over, I’ve lost, and there is nothing anyone can or will do! It’s OVER!”
He let go as abruptly as he’d grabbed her, and as he stumbled across the cell he groaned and crashed to the floor with a heavy thump.
Shaking out of control, Tellie stumbled away and hit the wall. She slid down to the ground, tears running down her cheeks to drip from her quivering chin and onto her drawn up knees. It was not his fault. She repeated that to herself over and over. He was right; she had no understanding of his pain. And pain was what caused this, he had not meant to hurt her, he couldn’t have.
What of his words about Ayeshune? Had he meant that? It was too terrible to be true. She had been held in the arms of the Almighty and she did not believe he could be the indifferent god Errance spoke of.
The cell bloomed into visibility about her—the stone, the bars, the body of Errance huddled in the corner. A form of light shimmered quite near, but she did not raise her head to look.
“I thought I was barred out,” she said, a bit coldly.
“Only for that time,” Rendar said. “Only so you did not destroy yourself.”
She looked to Errance, mouth twisting. “But he was nearly destroyed. What will happen now? Is he going to recover?”
Rendar walked into her vision, coming to Errance’s side. He knelt in a billow of robes, and it seemed that he gathered his son up in his arms, cradling head to his breast, though surely that would not be seen in mortal sight. “If given time,” he whispered. “But the choice is ultimately his.”
She leapt back up. “Then we’ll give him that chance! So how do we get out? You know, don’t you? Ayeshune knows!”
Rendar did not look up. “Escape is possible. But only for you. Errance cannot, will not go.”
It was a reality she did not care to hear, not from Errance, not from Rendar. “He came with us before, why should now be any different?”
“Because now, he understands the truth.”
“What truth?” Tears again filled her eyes, and the shining form became blurred.
Rendar’s words were terribly quiet. So very still and soft they hardly seemed to come from his mouth at all. “He is a prisoner of His Darkness. And the only true prisoners of Tertorem are those owned not only in body, but also in soul.”
“How can that be? Errance hates the Darkness more than anyone, and you raised him to follow the One Light!”
“Raised in it, yes,” the elf king said sorrowfully. “But believed in it? Did he embrace it for himself, trust in the One? No. No, he was too independent and too proud and…and…and—” His voice broke, and he huddled lower into the body of his son, shoulders beginning to shake.
Tellie stared, then took a tentative step forward. “Rendar…?”
His sob sent her skittering back like a young fawn. The great elven king, celestial, solemn, and wise was weeping, tears pouring from a loosened floodgate. Not merely tears, but a breathless wail that racked his entire body. She could only stare, eyes round and misty.
“I—blame myself,” he said through heaving breaths. “When he was young, I sheltered him completely from the outer world, even as he grew into a man. I had wanted to give him the paradise lost in my youth, for why should he suffer for the sins of his forebearers? But when he persisted in the desire to see and know the rest of the world, I knew I could not keep him forever. But when I let him go, I did not see that this—this—would happen. I had not seen that in my effort to give him perfection I had blinded him from the need for salvation. What thought for God had he save that it be his father’s religion? And when”—his voice curled with disgust—“has religion ever saved a soul?”
“This is a punishment then?” she cried, blood turning to mountain lava. “Yours, his?”
“Punishment?” Rendar looked sharply up, tears fading away. “Consequence. If one rejects the light, how can they help but be in darkness?”
Looking down again, he stroked a hand along Errance’s bruised brow. “Tellie. If there was any way that I could have saved him, I would have done it. I led the forces of Aselvia in attack against Tertorem soon after Errance was taken, and though my people believed it was simply a strike back against the evil that had slain my son, I had a hope to rescue him.”
She stared, then blinked. Blinked hard. “You mean—you mean you knew? This entire time—all these seventy years—you’ve known where Errance has been? Rendar, how could you? He loves you so much! How could you just leave him?”
Rendar’s eyes snapped open. She took a step back, startled by how alike they were to Errance’s in that moment. But behind the pain, anger, and sorrow swirling there, there was a calm assurance she could not comprehend. “It’s time you understood,” he said. He leaned forward and took her hand.
The next moment she felt the world rushing past, much like when they traveled to the brink of the celestial cleft. And then she found herself on a mountain peak overlooking the entire expanse of Tertorem, the razor sharp mountains, the solid walls. She looked at them, and she saw that they were a part of this world—the Unseen. “I don’t understand,” she stammered. “I thought the Unseen merely overlapped our world. But this…”
“That is how it is meant to be, Tellie. But the Darkness has grafted his kingdom to be one and the same. Tertorem may feel solid and strong, but it belongs to and so is bound by the rules of the Unseen. The Darkness cannot keep what does not belong to it. You were an orphan when you were first here, lost and alone. Now you are a child of the One. Its chains no longer apply to you and so you are free to leave.”
She stared out at the decimated world, heart sinking. “And Errance…”
“For months, we held the mountains under siege, but could find no breach or pass. One elf fell while trying to scale a cliff. I only just reached him in time to save his broken body. I looked upon the sorrow of my people’s faces who had already lost so many loved ones and now faced losing more, and I knew I could not spend their lives in folly. So we returned to Aselvia. I locked myself in my room for weeks on end, pleading…raging…with the One for my son’s deliverance. In the shadows, the Darkness himself appeared, daring me with a deal for Errance’s release. But I knew
how such deals ended and somehow found the strength to refuse. Because all along I knew…even if I had thrown down the walls of Tertorem, swept my boy into my arms, and taken him back to Aselvia…”
“He would still be as much a prisoner of the Darkness as he ever was,” Tellie finished softly. She understood those strange moments now, those times Errance’s spirit had fled back to this evil place. He would have been still here, in Tertorem, even in the midst of his home and his people.
Slowly, the prison walls closed back in around them, mountains fading away.
“You wonder why I died?” Rendar said softly. “Know then that I did not leave him. Many times I came here in the layers of the Unseen, and I sacrificed what I could of my spirit to give him strength.”
“You mean all the times he healed…it wasn’t just his light? It was yours?”
“Yes. I could not stand for his gift to be wasted here, so I spent as much light through the Unseen as I could, fading day by day in the real world.” He gave a sad laugh. “My poor people. They could not understand why I weakened.”
She shivered, remembering the confusion of the elves over his mysterious illness.
“But in the end,” he said, “Salvation could not come from me.”
“Is there no way he can be rescued then?” she asked hopelessly. “Why was I brought to him? Was our escape truly just a trick?”
Stepping back, Rendar studied her with gentle eyes. “It was the Darkness’s intent to tease him with the taste of freedom. But do you think it was in his plan for you and Kelm to care for Errance so tenderly? Did he know you would be taken in by the chemas, saved by brave and gentle Tryss? Was it just a coincidence that you should come across Coren and Zizain, The Daisha, people uniquely eligible to help Errance? My dear Tellie, the Darkness has forgotten the saving power of love. He now only twists it for destruction and underestimates its strength. This beautiful journey…it was not the Darkness’s crippling stroke, but God’s saving grace.”
“Then what happens now?”
“Know this,” he continued, hands clasping behind his back. “I have seen and experienced many impossibilities. Errance has come from a legacy of broken people—myself, his mother, his uncle—we all fell to darkest depths and yet were restored. The grace of the One is infinite. I have been promised that the time for Errance’s fate is at hand. The ultimate choice will be given him. What he will choose we do not know nor can we control.”
He knelt, taking her shoulders. “But you have a choice of your own to make. You have done a great thing for Errance…you have loved him. But for now, you must let him go. These bars, these prison walls are not meant for you.”
“But if I leave,” she whispered, “is there nothing else I can do?”
“I do not know. Ayeshune may yet have another path for you. But I have been sent to let you out.”
Fearfully, she gazed out at the black maw, the light of the Unseen only penetrating so far. “Alone?” Her voice sounded so small, so easily swallowed. “Without Errance…all alone?”
“Tellie.” His voice was the sternest she had heard yet. Stern, yet also the most compassionate. “Who are you following and placing your trust in? Errance? If so, then stay. But it is Ayeshune who has called you to this mission and it is Ayeshune who now calls you away. Who do you have faith in? Whom do you trust? If the One opens the door, does he not have the strength to carry you through?”
The Unseen vanished as suddenly as if she blinked. There was no sign to show that it existed…none visible. But as Tellie stumbled forward her hand caught against cold iron and the door creaked open.
With a delighted shriek, she whirled to Errance and, unable to help herself, called, “Look! Errance, look, the door! It’s open!”
A pause, then flesh scraped against stone. “What?” murmured a voice, dazed and barely audible.
“Come on!” She swung the door back and forth, letting it squeak on its hinges so he would know she spoke the truth. Maybe this one last hope was all that was needed to prompt him to faith. She heard him inhale, she heard him begin to sit up.
Then silence.
And then a release of breath and all hope. “What’s the point?” he whispered. “I’ll only be taken again. Why torture myself? I will never be free.”
Numb, she stared into the darkness where he lay.
“You’re right,” she said at last. “If you believe that, you never will be.”
Turning, she faced the open door where the darkness leered, willing her to collapse and succumb to its embrace. Then she broke out of its crushing hold and flew to Errance’s side and hugged his startled, resistant body.
“I’m sorry, Errance,” she gasped. “But I’m making my choice. Follow me soon, I beg you!” Before fear could stiffen her limbs once more, she flung herself out of the cell and staggered against the opposite wall.
She’d done it. She was out.
What next?
It was unlikely that escape could be found through the sewer passages again. Was there any possible way that she could sneak through the labyrinth of the fortress and then escape over the mountains? How would she survive? For a moment, she nearly wanted to run back to the cell with Errance. The chance of her escaping was ridiculous, no, impossible.
Warmth bloomed against her skin. Her fingers flew to her neck and discovered the spider-silk thread of the necklace. Catching it up, she pulled the moon medallion out from under her top and stared at it. The light shone in only a slim crescent, but it shone nevertheless.
Even upon her second capture she hadn’t been searched, perhaps because she was not expected to still carry it. After all, why would a simple orphan girl be trusted to carry something so precious?
One word rested in her heart, unfurling into power.
Follow.
She was an orphan no longer.
Holding out the moon medallion, she began wandering down the dark pathways of the prison, not knowing where she went, not knowing how long till she would be discovered. She simply trusted in the One for it was all she could do.
31
oOo
Chemas were creatures renowned for their stealth and secrecy, but never once had Tryss suspected she would hide from her own people. She could not actually disappear from their eyes like other races, but she took care not to be noticed as she snuck from the hut in which she’d taken refuge and went off in search of supplies. First, she restocked her arrows and added a few more knives, and then she crept to the healer’s hut and gathered up what medicines and wrappings she thought might be needed. What might be needed…oh, she shuddered to guess what state Errance or Tellie would be found in, if they could be found at all.
She couldn’t say good-bye. That stung. When first sent off, she’d waved farewell with little fear that she would not see her family again. Now she left on her own with little chance of coming back, and she could not tell them because they would surely not let her go.
Shaking away the growing fear and pain, she headed out into the jungle. Kelm lingered on the borders of the village, having refused to enter once he heard that a rescue effort was not being mounted.
“Kelm,” she whispered.
He turned and looked her up and down, eyes rekindling with hope. “I say…are you…”
“I’m going myself. I’ll go back to The Daisha and see if she’ll try to take me into Tertorem.”
“I’m going with you!”
“Absolutely not. You need to go to my village and stay safe. This is my choice.” Anything else she wanted to say to was drowned out by the explosive roar of the boy’s voice.
“Your choice? It’s my choice too! I mean…what other choice do I have? I don’t even have a family! Tellie is my best friend and Errance is my hero…there is no way I am staying behind! If you don’t take me, I’ll find a way of my own!”
She could not deny the truth of that or doubt his determination any more she could her own. Asking the tribe to keep him would only succeed in having her caught as well. Wit
h a frustrated breath, she nodded. “I understand. Perhaps we have a better chance together. Come on then.”
As they headed back to the clearing where they’d left The Daisha, they heard the sound of swinging branches, breaking bracken, and savage snarling. Tryss skidded to a halt, pulling Kelm to the ground. “Wait here,” she hissed.
She slid through the undergrowth, faintly pleased to back in her familiar jungle. She peered out between broad, waxy leaves into the glade where The Daisha stood in irate posture. The creature’s head snapped back and forth, her eyes following something small and altogether not dangerous. It took a moment before Tryss saw it—a flash of black and white wings.
“Come just a bit closer, you fiend!” The Daisha cried out. “And we’ll see what a pretty bird you are then!”
Sighing, Tryss rose from hiding. “Never mind, Kelm,” she called. “It’s just a bird.”
“Just a bird indeed!” The Daisha’s head snapped around to her, offense wrinkling her lips. “If you’d been watching for any length, you’d see that it’s a devil in feathers. It’s been terrorizing me for nearly an hour! You were taking so long, and I was about to have it for a tasty snack.”
Kelm stumbled into view, brushing twigs from his curls, and all of a sudden, the wings flashed white again, and the bird swooped low over the boy’s head, strong beak catching a lock of his hair and sharply tugging as it passed by. “Gah!” he yelped and ran under the refuge of The Daisha’s wing. “Stupid magpie!”
“Ignore it,” Tryss said, which was easy enough to say since the bird had made no attack on her. There was no time to mind bothersome birds, not even strange ones that she had never before seen in her jungle. “The Daisha, we will have to rescue them alone. My tribe is not coming.”
“Not a bit surprised,” The Daisha sniffed.
She winced, but there was no defense against the bitter truth. Setting her teeth, she swung onto The Daisha’s withers and looked around to see where Kelm had gone. The boy stood underneath a tree, tossing stones up at the offensive bird, who bounced from branch to branch, squawking and bobbing its long tail.
Moonscript (Kings of Aselvia Book 1) Page 38