The Elves of Cintra

CHAPTER TWELVE

KIRISIN AND HIS COMPANIONS stared down into the black hole left by the opening of the stone slab, two things happened in immediate sequence. First, torches fas–tened in iron stanchions secured to the rock walls of the stairwell flared to life, allowing them to see that the stairs themselves wound so deep underground that their end was invisible. Second, as they took their first cautious steps down those stairs, leaving Ashenell behind, the stone slab slid back into place with a fresh grating sound that froze them in their tracks. There was no time to turn back, and no chance to escape. The slab filled the gap anew, blotting out the night sky, and they were left shut away in the earth.

"Already, I don't like any of this," Simralin said.

"We are not meant to go back," Angel said. "No mistaking that."

They glanced at one another. Then, reaching an unspoken common consensus, they resumed their descent. Kirisin had started out in the lead, but Simralin quickly passed him by, giving him a look of warning as she did so. If there was to be any sort of trouble, the look said, she was better equipped to deal with it. He found that hard to argue with and dropped back to walk beside Erisha. He was thinking that they had brought almost no weapons at all with which to defend themselves.

"It would be good if we stayed close together," Angel observed from just behind them.

Kirisin glanced back at her. The runes carved in her staff glowed faintly in the dark, pulsing softly. Her face was tight with concentra–tion, and her eyes shifted restlessly as she descended, her footfalls soundless in the near silence. Perhaps in the company of a Knight of the Word, they needed no other protection.

He listened to his own breathing, which seemed to him the loudest sound in the stairwell. He tried to quiet it and failed. The pumping of his heart was a steady throbbing in his ears, and he tried and failed to quiet that, too. The air grew steadily colder with their descent, chang–ing from a dry woodland smell to the scent of damp rock and rain–soaked leaves. Somewhere farther down, he could hear water trickling over rocks. It reminded him of the mountain caves he had explored as a boy and of the graves of the dead on days when burials had to be held in the rain.

The stairs tunneled downward for a long time before ending in a narrow corridor that leveled off into what appeared to be a natural opening. Burning torches continued to mark their way, small flickering dots disappearing into the darkness. They moved ahead cautiously, lis–tening to the silence that surrounded the soft sounds of their breathing and their footfalls, their senses strained and their expectancy height–ened. There was something down here, something they were meant to find once they had made the decision to enter. The still–unanswered question, the fuel for their doubts and fears, was whether it was some–thing that would prove dangerous.

Suddenly Simralin held up her hand, bringing them to a stop. "Wait."

They stood silently, listening. After a moment, they could detect a faint sound from somewhere ahead, a soft, sibilant whisper. Kirisin tried and failed to identify it. He felt instinctively and for reasons he could not explain that it was a warning, but he could not tell what it warned against.

Simralin held them in place a moment longer, glanced back to make certain they were alert to the strange sound, and then started them for–ward once more. The passageway turned sharply left and straightened right again. It began to open up, the ceiling rising and the walls widen–ing. Stalactites began to appear, small at first and then large enough to dwarf the people passing beneath them, huge stone spears from which droplets of water fell, stinging with cold as they struck Kirisin on the face. He glanced up and found himself staring into a forest of tapering stone spirals clustered so thickly that he could no longer see the ceiling at all.

The passageway ended at a cavern dominated by a black water pool that filled a broad depression at its center. The surface of the water was flat and still, as if it comprised not liquid but opaque glass. The chamber itself was so large that its walls receded into blackness, invisible save where tiny pinpricks of torch fire burned bravely in the heavy gloom.

But it wasn't the chamber or the pool that drew everyone's eyes. It was the cluster of stone crypts and sepulchers that sprouted from the cavern floor. Those that were closest had writing that could be read in the flicker of the torchlight. Some had been carved with the letter G. Some bore the name GOTRIN.

Kirisin stared openmouthed. How many of them were there? Dozens and dozens, it seemed. Perhaps more than a hundred.

"They are all buried down here," he said, speaking aloud the words he was thinking, words that had come to him unbidden. "Those from Pancea's time, they are all buried here. The tombs aboveground do not belong to them."

He didn't know how he knew this; he simply did. He was already walking ahead, moving into that stone garden, feeling his way in his mind to the tomb he wanted. He couldn't have said why, but he felt it calling to him, drawing him on as if a voice speaking. He moved in re–sponse to that silent voice, conscious of almost nothing else. The others followed, glancing at each other in bewilderment, but letting the boy go where he chose.

He walked down almost to the edge of the pool and stopped before a triangular–shaped block of stone. Carved into its head, on the short, flat side of the triangle, were the letters P, R, and G.

He became aware suddenly that the whispering he had heard ear–lier was coming from here. But the pitch and tone had changed, and now it was less an unidentifiable sound and more a recognizable voice.

"She is here," he said.

Even as he finished speaking the words, the torches all about them began to flicker and dim and the pool of black water to swirl. There was wind where before there had been only stillness, a sudden rush that whipped down out of the ceiling rock and swept across the cavern floor. It was momentarily fierce, causing the four intruders to drop into a crouch and shield their eyes. Kirisin took refuge behind Pancea's tomb, bracing himself with one hand against the cold stone, head low–ered to protect his eyes.

"Kirisin!" he heard Erisha gasp.

— Why are the living come to me

The voice was low–pitched and gravel–rough, and it echoed through the cavern in the wake of the wind's departure, the silence returned anew, deep and abiding.

He lifted his head and found himself staring at the shade of an old woman.

The shade stood atop the tomb of Pancea, and he knew in an in–stant that it was her. She was small and wizened, bent at the shoulders as if the bearer of a great weight, her face so wrinkled that it had the look of leather crumpled by time and use. But her eyes were sharp and steady as they regarded him, and her talon–tipped fingers gripped a staff with strength that belied her seeming frailty.

He had never seen a shade. He had heard rumors of them, but they had always seemed to him to be the product of overactive imagina–tions. He swallowed hard. He would think differently after this.

The light of the torches, steady once more, passed through the old woman's transparent form in a shimmer of refracted light, and her image wavered and settled like mist.

— Why are the living come here. They do not belong

She spoke again, the question repeated. Her voice scraped and dragged over the words. Her eyes changed color, gone from black to a dangerous green.

"We had no choice," he answered, knowing he must say something.

"We are searching for the blue Elfstones, and a journal we uncovered said they could be found in the tomb of Pancea Rolt Cruer" She regarded him without speaking, her gaze steady.

He waited a moment, and then asked, "Are you her? Are you Pancea Rolt Cruer?"

— I am Queen Pancea Rolt Gotrin. Show me respect

"I apologize, Your Majesty," he said quickly. He tried to think what to say next. "I am a Chosen.

She is another." He pointed to Erisha. "The Ellcrys sent us to find the blue Elfstones. There is a terrible struggle tak–ing place on the surface of the world between demons and their allies and Elves and Men. The demons are winning. The Ellcrys says that she is threatened and must be moved. She says we must use the blue Elf–stones to find the Loden and place her inside."

He hesitated, and then gestured at Angel. "This is a Knight of the Word, sent to warn us that our world will be destroyed. The Word says the Elves must leave the Cintra. To do that, we must take the Ellcrys with us. So we've come here, looking for a place to start."

— You would start your journey with the dead? Is that not strange? The dead have nothing to offer the living. The dead are of the past and never of the present. The dead do not pretend to care about what is or will be. The dead seek only to keep what is theirs

She lifted a hand and pointed at them, one by one. As she did so, Kirisin felt a stab of cold rage spear him, projected from the shade's own dark heart.

— You trespass where you do not belong. You have entered sacred ground and defiled it. Your arrogance is offensive to me

Her hands lifted and swept the air on both sides, sending strange trailers of light scattering from her fingertips. The light fragmented and settled atop the surrounding tombs, flaring as it touched each crypt.

Then the air itself shimmered, and the shades of the Gotrin dead began to rise out of their resting places, lifting into the near darkness in ghostly white transparencies, the outlines of their bodies and faces a liquid shimmer, the whisper of their awakening a cacophony of hissing that matched that which had first drawn Kirisin and his companions. One by one, they appeared, shades of all sizes and shapes, ghosts come out of the stone that housed their mortal remains.

Kirisin took a step back. He could feel the threat implicit in their presence, as dark and cold as the rage that Pancea had projected from her heart. The dead did not want them here. The dead did not want the living in their private sanctuary, and they were prepared to reveal in no uncertain terms what his intrusion meant.

"We came because we had to?" he repeated desperately. "Would you wish the living as dead as you? Do you think we are wrong to try to save them?"

The shades of the Gotrins began to creep closer, floating on the cold cavern air, tightening their circle. Simralin was standing next to him by now, and he was aware of Angel and Erisha coming up as well. He caught a glimpse of Angel's black staff out of the corner of his eye, its runes glowing with white fire.

"If you do not help us, all the Elves will die!" he insisted.

— The dead care nothing for the living and their problems

She rose from the lid of her crypt and settled to the ground. She was small, but he could feel her power radiating out from her ethereal form in cold waves.

"Get back from her, Kirisin," his sister ordered. "Get back right now?"

When he failed to move quickly enough, she took him roughly by his shoulder and dragged him away. But the shade of Pancea Rolt Gotrin kept coming, her advance slow and inexorable as she glided across the darkness that separated them.

"What about the magic?" Kirisin demanded, desperate now. "The magic you tried to preserve? If the Elves die, the magic dies, as well?"

— The magic cannot die. The magic lives even beyond death

"Not if there is no one left to wield it? Without the living, it cannot grow or change? It cannot evolve in new ways. It remains static and dor–mant? Eventually, it will weaken from lack of use and disappear corn–pletely!"

He barely knew what he was saying, acting on instinct, speaking whatever words he thought the shade might respond to. He couldn't tell what they might be; he only knew he had to find a way to reach her. To his surprise, she stopped moving. Behind her, the other shades stopped, as well. The ripples of ice emanating from their ghostly forms softened ever so slightly. Pancea Rolt Gotrin studied him. One with–ered hand lifted and pointed.

— What will you do with the Elfstones if I release them to you? To what use will you put them

"I will use them to find the Loden Elfstone, and use the Loden to save the Ellcrys and her people." He hesitated. "And then I will do whatever I can to persuade the Elves to find the magic they have lost."

— You seek to placate me. The Elves will never find their magic again. They have forgotten its purpose. They have changed their way of life and by doing so have lost the magic forever

"The old world is ending," Erisha said suddenly. "In the new, they may have need of the magic again. If they are to survive, they will be forced to start over."

"If there are no Elves left, if there are no humans, if there are only demons and demonkind, what is the point of the magic in any case?" asked Kirisin. "The magic needs our people to wield it if it is to serve a purpose. Can we not recover it somehow? It cannot be completely out of reach."

— The magic lies deep within the earth, where it has always been. The magic is elemental, and the Elves had use of it until they gave way before the humans. Why would this change

She was still not persuaded, but she was listening now, giving con–sideration to what he was telling her. Kirisin felt a surge of hope. Per–haps there was a way to change her thinking after all.

But just as he was ready to believe that the shades guarding these tombs and their secrets might be willing to share what they kept hid–den, Pancea started toward him again, hand outstretched.

— Let me touch you

He shrank from her. If he was touched by the dead, by a shade, what would it do to him? Was just that touch enough to steal his life? He didn't know, and he didn't care to find out.

He held out his hands. "I don't think you should do that."

"Get away from him?" snapped Simralin, stepping in front of her brother.

The shade turned to her, outstretched arm shifting slightly. — Foolish girl

The words hung frozen on the air in the ensuing stillness. Then Pancea's arms swept out and Simralin flew backward, taking Erisha and Angel with her, and leaving them scattered like leaves caught in a strong wind. They lay where they had fallen, unmoving.

Kirisin tried to turn and flee, but found he couldn't move. He pan–icked, thrashing against his invisible bonds. Nothing helped. — Let me touch you

The shade was right on top of him now. It took every ounce of willpower he could muster, but he quieted himself and straightened. If he couldn't avoid this, he must do his best to face it in the right way. "Please don't hurt me," he whispered.

The shade stopped right in front of him. Eyes as blank and empty as white stones stared out of an aged, ruined face.

— If you lie, I will know. If you deceive, I will know. If you lack heart or courage, I will know

Her hand stretched out to him, touched his chest, and passed in–side. He could feel the intrusion, a wash of cold that was deep and aching. He flinched, but held himself steady, watching the hand, then the wrist, and finally the forearm disappear inside his body. The cold ra–diated out, filling his chest and stomach, ranging farther to his limbs and finally into his head. It was a different kind of cold, one that he had never experienced, one that he could not compare to anything he knew.

He waited to die.

Inside, he could feel a shift in the cold, which seemed to correspond to the slow movement of her arm through his chest.

I am not afraid, he told himself, and wished it were so.

Then she spoke.

— Kirisin Belloruus. You do not lie. You do not deceive. You do not lack heart or courage. You are young, but your word is good. I feel in you a reason to believe again. I sensed it when you touched the letters of my name carved on my family tomb. I sense it now

Her pale form shimmered and drew closer, until her wrinkled ghost's face was only inches from his own.

— You are indeed Chosen. You are the one. You have the magic in–side you, your past and your future. You have the gift

Slowly, she withdrew her arm from his body. As she did so, the cold dissipated and was gone. Her blank eyes stared at him.

— I will give you what you seek. I will trust you to keep your word. Save the living, if you can. Find the Loden. Take the Elves to safety. But remember your promise. When that is done, you will persuade them to find and make use of their magic once more. You will recover the old ways

She waited on him, and he nodded. "I promise."

— You must do this alone

He hesitated. "I have my friends to help me, Erisha and Simralin and Angel Perez, the ones who came with me."

Her mouth opened and closed in what looked to be a soundless scream. Her arms fell away to her sides.

You must do this alone

— She glided backward toward her tomb, and as she did so the other shades withdrew as well, dozens of ethereal forms retreating into the darkness. One by one they reached their stone resting places and disap–peared.

She was the last, hovering momentarily as she whispered to him.

— Brave boy. You must do this alone

Then she was gone, and the silence that settled like dust from a passing wind was deafening.

HE STOOD where he was for the longest time. It seemed that hours might have elapsed when he thought back on it later, but he knew that it was only seconds. He was thinking about what she had said, about how he must do what she had asked of him. She had been so insistent, so certain. She had dismissed the possibility that his sister or Erisha or Angel Perez would play any part. He couldn't understand it. How could they not be involved in what he was supposed to do?

He felt the cold of the chamber seep into him, a different cold from the touch of the shades, a different burn. He could smell the rock and the water, the scent of minerals and earth, of old stale darkness in a place where the living had not come for centuries.

He could sense how badly he had intruded and how little he be–longed.

Then his three companions were surrounding him, gripping him, calling his name, scattering his thoughts into memories.

"Little K." Simralin spoke his name sharply, one strong hand fasten–ing on his shoulder. "Are you all right?"

He nodded, meeting her gaze. She looked decidedly unsettled and distressed in a way he had seldom seen her. He smiled reassuringly. She was worried for him. "What about you, Sim? She threw you a long way."

His sister shook her head. "I don't remember. I blacked out, and when I woke up she was gone–the others with her–and you were standing here alone."

He glanced at Erisha and Angel, and they nodded, as well. "I have never had anyone do that to me," the latter said, a note of bitterness tinging her words. "I don't want it to happen ever again."

"The Elven dead have great power," Simralin said. "Especially when they possessed magic in their former lives. I've heard Father speak of it. Pancea Rolt Gotrin was a sorceress. She took some of that magic with her to the grave."

"Can we leave now?" Erisha asked sharply, hugging herself. Her smooth features were twisted with distaste. "We'll just have to try something else, find some other way to recover the Elfstones. But not tonight. I don't want to be here anymore tonight."

Simralin put an arm around her shoulders. "I don't blame you. I'm still cold from what the shades made me feel." Her grip tightened. "But we came here to find the Elfstones, and if we leave without them — "

"We don't have to leave without them," Kirisin interrupted. His hand rested against the pocket of his tunic, pressing against something inside. He fumbled with the flap for a moment, then drew out a small leather pouch.

He held it out to them. "I just realized it was there. I just felt it. I know what it is. Look?"

He opened the drawstrings and dumped the contents into the palm of his hand. Three perfectly formed blue gemstones twinkled and glim–mered in the faint rays of the torches, bright beacons against the dark–ness.

"The Elfstones!" Simralin whispered.

"She said she would give them to me. It was the bargain she struck in return for my promise to help persuade the Elves to recover their magic. She said she trusted me to do what I promised."

Angel stepped forward quickly and looked down at the gems. "Are you sure of what they are?"

Kirisin shook his head. "No one living has ever seen an Elfstone. But I know. These are Elfstones. Blue, for seeking, just as the books and the Ellcrys promised." He looked down at the stones and then up again at her. "We have what we need to find the Loden."

They were in a much better frame of mind as they started back into the tunnel toward the stairway leading up, their hushed voices excited and eager as they talked about what they would do next. Because they had the Elfstones in hand, Erisha thought they should take them before the High Council and her father and demand that they be allowed to use them to search for the Loden. Angel agreed. It was better if they had the support and approval of the Elven community and better still if they had help with their search. Surely with the blue Elfstones as ev–idence that what the Ellcrys had asked of Erisha and Kirisin was possi–ble, help could not be denied.

But Kirisin and his sister were not so sure. Both had reason to ques–tion how supportive Arissen Belloruus would be. Both worried about the King's reaction to their discovery. What if he chose to lay claim to the Elfstones on behalf of the Elven people? Once they revealed that they had possession, they couldn't very well keep the King from taking them away. Arissen Belloruus was a strong personality and a powerful ruler; if he decided that the Stones should be under the con–trol of the throne, whatever the merits of his reasoning, even the High Council would find it difficult to override him.

But there was an even more troubling problem, one that none of them wanted to consider. What if the King was the demon Ailie had sensed in the High Council chambers? What would their chances of keeping the Elfstones be then?

They were still mulling over the matter as they climbed the stairs toward the exit from the underground. Kirisin gave momentary consid–eration to how they were going to get out again if the heavy slab was still closed, then decided that if the shade of Pancea had given them the Elfstones, she would surely provide them with a way out. Sure enough, they reached the top of the stairs and found moonlight shining down through the opening, the smells of the forest and the night reaching out to welcome them. Kirisin breathed in deeply as they stepped back out into the Ashenell, the cold of the cavern stone giving way to the softness of the forest breezes.

Behind them, the stone slab slid back into place, closing off the stairs and the underground. Almost immediately, fresh debris blown in on a small gust of wind covered it over; in seconds, no evidence of its existence remained.

Kirisin, in the lead, turned to the others. "We can meet again — "

He stopped in midsentence, his eyes drawn suddenly to Angel Perez. The Knight of the Word had gone into a crouch, her eyes shift–ing everywhere at once. He realized what was happening an instant be–fore she cried out.

"Demon?"

She wheeled in a circle, black staff sweeping the darkness, and Kirisin saw that she didn't know where the demon was. Erisha and Simralin had just turned back in response to her cry when the monster burst from the shadows in a dark rush. Long and sleek, its body that of a nightmarish four–legged beast, it catapulted into their midst. Sim–ralin, a pair of long knives appearing in her hands as if by magic, lunged at it as it vaulted past. The monster shrieked and twisted its head to one side. Erisha was knocked spinning; she threw up her arms in shock, a gasp issuing from her lips. The beast came on, straight for Kirisin now. He dropped into a protective crouch and fumbled frantically for his dagger.

Then Angel was between them, bringing up her black staff, its magic exploding into the demon. The force of the blow knocked the demon to one side, changing its course of attack just enough that it missed the boy. It tried to renew its assault, but its movements had be–come erratic, as if chains were dragging at it. It staggered, straightened, and then staggered again.

When it wheeled back again and the moonlight bathed its ferocious countenance, Kirisin saw what was wrong. One of Simralin's knives was buried to the hilt in its eye socket, black blood pouring out over the handle.

The demon shrieked one final time, the sound harsh and chilling, freezing them all in place. Then it was gone into the night.

Angel started after it, face contorted in fury, and stopped. It was useless. The demon was gone, and she wasn't going to catch it.

Simralin's remaining knife caught the moonlight as she whipped it back into its sheath.

"Shades?" she hissed. Her face was pale and tight. "My blade should have killed it. How can it still be alive?"

Then Kirisin saw Erisha. She was sprawled on her back, her throat a red smear against her white skin. Blood pumped from a terrible wound that opened all the way to her neck bones. She tried futilely to speak, her hands groping for her ruined throat. Kirisin rushed to her side, Angel and his sister a step behind. Erisha's eyes found his, a mir–ror for her desperation and fear, for her realization of what had just happened to her.

Then the blood ceased to pump, her hands fell back against her sides, and her eyes fixed sightlessly in place.

"Erisha," he whispered in horror.

From back toward the gates they had come through, shouting arose. Home Guards, alerted to their presence. Kirisin blinked. How could that be? How could they have appeared so quickly? He had just enough time to realize that it was impossible unless someone had alerted them earlier, and then Simralin was yanking him about.

"We have to go, Little K," she said.

He looked at her in disbelief "But we can't — "

"They're coming!" she spat at him furiously, practically throwing him ahead of her. "We can't let them find us? Run?"

Angel was already in flight, heading away from the voices. Kirisin took one final look at Erisha, felt everything he had hoped for slip away as he did so, and then began to run.