The Elven (35 page)

Farodin was amazed at her speed and that she had him on the defensive again. Her attacks came so fast that he barely found an opening for a riposte. He had to end this game, or she would.

Her blade jabbed forward, a strike aiming at Farodin’s hip. He was just able to catch the strike in time, then faked a slight stumble, leaving his chest undefended.

This is what Giliath had been waiting for. Like the sting of the scorpion, her second blade lashed forward. Farodin turned inside her attack and brought up his dagger. Steel met steel with a clang. They were standing so close that he could feel Giliath’s breath on his cheek. Their blades were crossed at the level of their heads. Giliath broke the impasse and stepped back. Farodin stroked her cheek lightly with his hand as she did so and also stepped back.

“The fight is over,” he announced in a loud voice, and everyone in the hall could see that he had won. A thin line of blood trickled from a cut on Giliath’s cheek and down her neck.

She laid one sword on the ground and touched her face in disbelief. She looked at the blood on her fingers, perplexed. But instead of protesting, she stood and lowered her head to Farodin. “I bow my head humbly before the victor and apologize for my words,” she said in a toneless voice, clearly still shaken by the unexpected end to their fight.

Angry voices rose on all sides. Many were not prepared to accept the outcome of the fight, and loud were the accusations of treachery leveled at the queen’s courtier.

Nuramon ran to Farodin and embraced him in congratulation. “How did you do that?” he whispered.

“The ring,” Farodin replied. He released himself from Nuramon’s embrace and raised his hand so that the small treasure with the sharp-edged stones could be seen by all. The deep red gems looked like drops of blood set in gold.

“I challenge you to the blade dance!” A young warrior was standing in front of Farodin. “The way you won the fight was dishonorable. It offends me and my people.”

Farodin let out a long sigh. He was about to say something in reply when Malawayn’s voice rose above the din. “My brothers, the matter is settled. Until the first blood flows, that is the law. It doesn’t say anywhere that the blood must flow because of a sword. Let us accept the outcome, though it was born more from cunning than skill.”

Despite Malawayn’s intervention, the clamor settled only slowly. Many of the younger elves left the hall in fury.

With a gesture, silver-haired Malawayn invited Farodin and Nuramon to sit at his side. He poured them each a mug of his wine and offered them fruit from the heavy silver plates set before him on the carpet. Little by little, it grew quieter in the hall.

When they had eaten together, Malawayn asked them to tell him about Albenmark. It was Nuramon who responded, and he made every effort to put what had just happened out of the minds of those around them. Farodin envied his ability to bring a story to life so vividly that anyone listening could practically see Albenmark before their eyes.

In return, the companions heard a great deal about life in the desert. The elves of Valemas had turned a muddy waterhole into a blooming oasis. It had taken them a long time to find this place, for like their ancestors, they loved the desert country. And they joked that it was the heat of the desert that made them so hot-blooded.

They also talked about how they often rode into the world of humans. The mortals there called them the Girat, which, in their language, meant something like
ghosts
, and they treated the elves of Valemas with the utmost respect.

“Whenever they meet us, they insist on presenting us with gifts,” Malawayn said with a smile. “I think they see us as some kind of bandits to be paid off.”

“And you let them go on believing that?” Farodin regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth.

“We have no choice. We lack so much here that we gladly accept any gift. We don’t relinquish our honor by doing so. We take nothing by force, although we easily could.” He lowered his head and gazed into the winding pattern of the carpet. “What I miss the most are the stars in the sky over Albenmark.”

“What if you make peace with the queen?” asked Nuramon.

Malawayn looked at him in surprise. “We elves of Valemas may have lost much, but we have not lost our pride. We will only return to Albenmark if Emerelle asks us to, and if she will guarantee our freedom there.”

Then you will never return to Albenmark
, thought Farodin to himself.

At the Edge of the Oasis

A
s a child, Nuramon’s thoughts had often turned to the desert and the fabled old city of Valemas. He had envisioned how it might look there but had never actually visited. This oasis was far different from what he had imagined the city of legend to be like. For one thing, there was no sun here, neither the sun of Albenmark nor that of the human world. But the sorcerers of this society had woven a canopy of light and pitched it like a tent over their settlement and the surrounding desert. They had even taken day and night into consideration; the light faded through an unusually long dusk and returned some hours later in a brief dawn.

The bond with the desert was plain to see and feel, despite all the water. Even the soft wind that blew here tasted like the desert.

Nuramon was following a path that he had been told led to the edge of the settlement. Valiskar had showed him the way. Apparently, the border of their domain lay at the end of the path. The other regions of the Shattered World were generally perceived as islands in an ocean of nothingness. It was this ocean that Nuramon wanted to see for himself. He had left his companions behind with the horses at the spring, and they were resting there in one of the cob houses. Despite the efforts of the healers of Valemas, Mandred was taking a long time to regain his old vigor. In his feverish sleep, he called out the name of Atta Aikhjarto repeatedly. Farodin had stayed with him; despite the hospitality they had been shown in recent days, he still mistrusted the inhabitants of the oasis.

But Nuramon was far too curious to linger there. He even began to walk faster, wanting to reach the edge of the oasis as quickly as he could.

Suddenly, the path he was on came to an end at a statue of Yulivee, the woman who had founded the oasis. Her image was to be found in many places in Valemas. The elves of the desert revered her almost as much as Mandred revered his gods. She had been a beautiful woman. Her sandstone likeness wore a self-assured smile, and two polished stones of malachite had been set in the eyes. Nuramon had seen a sculptor setting gemstones in the eyes of a statue at the queen’s court. First, the stones were set in the carved eye sockets, then the stone eyelids were placed over them and fused to the stone of the statue with a magic spell. Like that, the eyelids overlaid the malachite, and it looked as if the eyes were real and might blink at any moment. The figure gestured invitingly toward a stone at its side.

Nuramon accepted the invitation and sat down. The view the seat afforded him was surprising. He was at the edge of the oasis, that was clear. In front of him, however, lay not the sea of nothingness—as he had silently expected—but the desert. Perhaps one had to go out there, farther and farther, to reach the true boundary of this region. Nuramon suddenly realized that something wasn’t right. The breeze was cool on the back of his neck, and at the same time, he saw fine sand swirling up and being blown toward him. But it never reached him. It disappeared, as if it had never existed. Was it possible that the desert that opened in front of him was no more than an illusion? An image of the real desert that began on the other side of the oasis and led to the stone ring? That would be a powerful spell indeed.

Nuramon stood and took a step toward the desert. Immediately, he could sense the power of the magic. A barrier like a wall of the finest glass separated the settlement from the phantasm out there. Cautiously, Nuramon raised his hands and felt for the unseen wall.

There was a crackling beneath his fingers. Hastily, he pulled his hand back. The desert blurred before his eyes, and the horizon darkened, the darkness spreading over the land with uncanny speed. It pressed toward him, swallowing first the dunes and then, step by step, the sand and rocks of the plain. But just before it reached him, the darkness lightened and grayed in the glow of Valemas. The town’s radiance reached far. An abyss opened at Nuramon’s feet, a pit of blue-gray fog that was slowly seething. That had to be the ocean on which the islands of the Shattered World floated. The darkness above it was the sky of this desolate world.

Somewhere out there was Noroelle. And maybe she, like he, was looking out into this vast emptiness at that moment. No doubt, like the sorcerers of this place, she had shaped her world to suit herself. Nuramon could only hope that she was not in some place of perpetual mourning. If he had any chance to overcome this fog, he would take it and go however far was needed. Perhaps there was a way to reach Noroelle directly, a path that circumvented the queen’s barriers.

Nuramon returned to the stone beside the statue and sat down again. And as he watched the image of the desert return, he thought about the idea that had just occurred to him. Was there perhaps some kind of boat that could sail on that fog like a normal ship could sail the seas?

A voice jolted him out of his ruminations. “You saw it?”

Nuramon’s hand flew automatically to the grip of his sword as he spun around. Beside the statue of Yulivee stood a man in loose pale-green and white robes.

“Whoa! Not so fast, stranger,” he shouted.

Then Nuramon noticed that the man had no feet. His robes simply fluttered in the air. They billowed much more than the gentle breeze there would move them. The figure’s green hair swirled around his head as if ruffled strand by strand by unseen fingers.

“Never seen a spirit before, I’ll wager,” said the man.

Nuramon could not take his eyes off this apparition. “Spirits I’ve seen, but none like you.” The figure seemed almost elf-like. Pointed ears protruded through his hair, but they seemed somehow meatier than elven ears. His hands were exceptionally large and misshapen; he could have wrapped Nuramon’s head in just one of them. But the spirit’s head was elongated and his chin pointed, and the broad grin he wore could not change that.

“My name is Nuramon. What is yours?”

“Names. Phooey,” said the spirit, waving dismissively. “Life would be so much easier if we didn’t have names to deal with. Names are just an obligation. Someone knows your name, and next thing you know, he’s calling it out and telling you, ‘Do this. Do that.’” He raised his eyebrows, and his pale-green eyes glittered. “I’m one of a kind here. In Valemas, there’s only one djinn. And that’s me. Even when I’m sometimes here, sometimes there . . .” He pointed to a spot next to Nuramon, disappeared in a chilly draft, and reappeared at the place he’d pointed to. “And even then, I’m still the same one.” The spirit bowed to him. “Quick, what’s your favorite color?”

Nuramon hesitated, then said, “Blue.” He was thinking of Noroelle’s eyes.

The spirit whirled around, and when he stopped and grinned at Nuramon again, he had blue hair and blue eyes and wore blue and white robes. “And I’m still the same one and the only one in these parts, even if you see me in blue. So who needs a name? Just call me
djinn
.”

Nuramon looked at this being in amazement. A real, live djinn, floating in front of him. He had heard of them. It was said that all trace of them had been lost, but that some had hidden themselves away in Albenmark’s few deserts. Others even claimed the djinns had never existed.

“Well, djinn . . . perhaps you can help me.”

The spirit’s face turned serious. “Finally. Finally someone who can appreciate my infinite wisdom.”

Nuramon had to smile. “Well, you’re very modest.”

The djinn bowed. “Absolutely. I would never say a word about myself that was not true.” He came close to Nuramon and whispered, “You should know that once”—he looked left and right—“once I lived in another place. It was an oasis of knowledge in the ubiquitous desert of ignorance.”

“Hmm. And what knowledge did they safeguard there?”

The djinn adopted a look of incomprehension. “Everything, obviously. The knowledge that
was
, the knowledge that
is
, and the knowledge that is
yet to come
.”

This merry spirit must have thought him an idiot. Even Emerelle could only vaguely see the future. Still . . . if this djinn was not just some mirage conjured up by his overwrought mind, and if his words contained a grain of truth, then he might be able to help them in their search for Noroelle. “Where is that place?” he asked the spirit.

“You should picture it as an enormous library. And you will find it inside the fire opal in the crown of the maharaja of Berseiniji.”

“A library? In a stone?”

“Yes.”

“That’s hard to believe.”

“Would you rather believe the fire opal is an Albenstar that moves around?”

Nuramon did not answer that. The djinn was right: an Albenstar that was not tied to one place seemed more unbelievable than a stone in which spirits gathered all the worlds’ knowledge.

The djinn went on speaking. “The fire opal was our gift to Maharaja Galsif. We owed him a debt of gratitude, so we entrusted him with the opal and became his mentors. And we were good mentors.” He disappeared again and reappeared on Nuramon’s left. “Galsif was a clever man and guarded our knowledge with great wisdom. And in his wisdom, he did not tell his son about our presence. His son was a tyrant and a fool and not worthy of our knowledge. We spirits went in and out of the opal without anyone noticing. There can be no place safer than the crown of a mighty ruler.”

Nuramon thought for a moment. It all sounded extremely fanciful. “In that
library
, could I discover how I might travel through this world from one island to another?”

“You could, if the library were still there, but it disappeared a long time ago. After Galsif, many generations of rulers came and went before Maharaja Elebal overthrew the neighboring kingdom and pushed east. In the end, he fought in the forests of Drusna, where he and his entire cohort disappeared. Once he was gone, his kingdom disappeared, and the crown, which was lost with Elebal in Drusna, has been missing ever since. Before it vanished, I could sense the opal from anywhere I happened to be in the human world and find my way to it. But ever since, I have not been able to detect it when I go wandering in the world of the mortals. Perhaps the crown and the fire opal have been destroyed. Or perhaps they have not and instead are surrounded and safeguarded by magic. It could be that they turn up again, someday. But until that day, you will have to make do without the knowledge contained in the library. I can still answer your question, however, because my knowledge is wide, but you will not like my answer.”

The djinn floated to the edge of the oasis, and from one moment to the next, the darkness returned. “You’ve already seen it. Look at that stuff. Who but the Alben could stroll across that gray fog? It would be fatal to go out there. What is out there fundamentally has nothing to do with what is in here. It is more like the background to the Shattered World, what’s left behind when a world disappears. The individual islands lie unimaginably distant from one another. Of course, there are Albenpaths and also Albenstars here in the oasis. But we can only really use the one path that leads to the human world. All the rest lead into the darkness and end somewhere between the islands. If you were to take one of those paths, you would be lost forever. And trying to move outside the Albenpaths will also get you nowhere. I can fly. I’ve even been out there, but I came back quickly, before I lost sight of Valemas’s light. Even if you could fly, you would not get far without food or water. Believe me, Nuramon, even
I
would be doomed out there. For every being there is feeds on something, and out there is
nothing
. There is no way through the emptiness from one island to another.”

So that was that for Nuramon’s idea. If it wasn’t even possible for a spirit to travel through the Shattered World, then getting around the queen’s barrier like that was out of the question. They would have to tackle it from within the human world.

“I can see that this troubles you, but life is too long to fill with misery. Look at me. I’ve found a new home here and live quite a cheery life among these elves.”

“Forgive me, djinn, but that is no solution for me. I have to break through a barrier surrounding an Albenstar to reach a particular place in the Shattered World. I don’t even know where this Albenstar is, only that it is somewhere in the Other World.”

“But you will find it, won’t you?”

“I will search for it in the elven way, and one day, I will find it. But what then? How am I supposed to overcome a magical barrier set up to protect the Albenstar?”

“I can’t tell you how to get rid of an obstacle like that, but I can tell you that it’s been done often enough. Great power is needed to defeat great power, every time.”

“Then my companions and I are lost.”

“I know what’s bothering you. The queen of Albenmark is the one who put up this barrier.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because her power is matchless. So for you and your companions, it all looks rather bleak.” The djinn floated around Nuramon. “Gracious me. An elf who wants to break his own queen’s enchantment. Who ever heard of such a thing? Around here, they say you’re all so nice and obedient in Albenmark.”

“I implore you, don’t say a word to anyone about my plans.”

“I will keep your secret as secret as my own name. And because I admire Albenkin who have a bit of spunk, I’ll even help you. You should know that breaking down barriers around Albenstars has a history. Even though the fire opal is missing and my own knowledge of spells of banishment is unfortunately rather limited, I can point you toward a place where all the knowledge of the worlds has been collected for millennia. The gate to reach it lies in Iskendria. Of course, this library is but a pale shadow of the library of the djinns, but why hold all the knowledge of the worlds in your hands when all you need is a pinch of it?”

Iskendria. The name had a ring to it that Nuramon liked. “Where is this Iskendria?” he asked.

“Follow the Albenpath that leads north from the stone circle. Go until you reach the sea.” The djinn whirled and pointed off to the side. “Then head to the west and follow the coast. You can’t miss Iskendria.” The spirit folded his arms.