The Elven (46 page)

A Glance in the Mirror

N
uramon followed the dwarven king, certain that another surprise was waiting for him at the end of the passage. He had never in his life received as much recognition as he had here in the halls of the dwarves. The king had given a feast in his honor, and Nuramon had celebrated like never before, in such high spirits that he barely recognized himself. A little goodwill had been enough, and Nuramon already felt himself to be part of the society here. The dwarves indeed claimed that he had been too polite when raising his cup, but he had done his best to conform to their rough customs at table, and he ate and drank things he would otherwise never have touched.

Many of the dwarves asked him whether he could still remember meeting them, but to his regret, he recognized nobody from his previous life. He had been hoping that the familiar surroundings would give him back his memory of those times, but it was obviously not that easy. But if he were to believe Thorwis, then one day he would recognize all of his dwarf friends again and know what he once had observed, thought, and felt.

Nuramon had long since come to understand why he had stood at the side of the dwarves in that previous life, although at first glance they had so little in common. Thorwis had told him that the dwarves knew the moonlight and called it
silverlight
, but that, so far, very few had passed into it. Most dwarves chronicled the experiences of their lifetime and, at some point, died, only to be born into their own inheritance in a new life. From the beginning, rebirth had been the rule for the children of the Darkalben. It was understood that death was just an interruption of life, like a time of sleep that clouded the memory. In time, one could regain that memory, and death was no more than a brief dream.

Some dwarves had managed to recall all of their lives. Thorwis and Wengalf were among these, but most were still on the path to that goal. Until they reached it, they would continue to read the texts they had written and left for themselves to remind themselves of what had mattered most to them in their past lives.

Nuramon was still far from retrieving these memories. He knew little about himself, and he hadn’t left anything for his rebirth. Wengalf and Thorwis told him that he had come to know the dwarves when they were still in Albenmark and that he had left alongside them and become a hero in their new home. But the things they were telling him were at odds with the image he had drawn of himself. They spoke of a hero of the sort sung about in old songs. But what had he done in this life to warrant that kind of acclaim? Nothing.

Wengalf spoke then, bringing Nuramon back to the moment. “We’re nearly there. We have to go this way.” The dwarf turned into a wide corridor. It was cool here, with a coolness that did not match the warmth of the light cast by the barinstones in the walls. At some distance, Nuramon could see a stronger source of light, its glow spilling out into the corridor.

“What is this place?” asked Nuramon.

“These are the Halls of the Faces,” answered Wengalf cryptically.

They came closer and closer to the bright light, and it soon seemed as if snow and ice were frozen onto the walls and radiated light. Nuramon realized that he was looking at crystals. When they reached the light, he saw what the walls had created: white minerals grew out of them in thin crystal needles, looking like pale tufts of grass. Beyond this section, the corridor opened into a circular hall with a low domed ceiling. In the center of the hall, a round opening guided light from the ceiling down onto a quartz crystal as big as an elf. Inside the crystal was a figure, completely enclosed and standing upright.

“You never asked me what we did with your body after you died,” said Wengalf quietly as they approached the large crystal.

Nuramon was suddenly frightened. In front of him, inside the crystal, stood an elf in metal armor. His eyes were closed as if he were sleeping. For Nuramon, it was like looking into a mirror. This man had black hair, not brown, and it was much longer than his own. The face was a little wider, the nose shorter. But despite these differences, he recognized himself in the elf before him. The dwarves had brought his body to this hall and, using their magical skills, enclosed it inside the crystal. The result looked like a statue of a mythical hero. Nuramon moved around the crystal and scrutinized the body from his previous life. Compared with this warrior with his broad shoulders and noble bearing, he must seem like a child. There could be no doubt about who he was looking at.

“Why do you do this?” he asked Wengalf. “Why keep the bodies laid out like this, on display? How am I supposed to believe in
one
great life when I see the body of another in front of me?”

Wengalf looked up at him gravely. “Thorwis believed it was the right time for you to see this. And I agree. You have to learn that you are much more than your body.” He pointed to the crystal. “You cast off this one here like a suit of armor that had seen better days. And what days they were.” The Wengalf’s gaze drifted off into nothingness. “Death is painful, and the memory of it is seldom pleasant, but when I visit these halls to see my old body, it gives me strength. I look at my earlier face and see what I once was. My mind becomes clear. Faced with my old body, I feel myself transported back to the old times.”

Wengalf was right. Why let the body decay if the sight of it can serve as a bridge to the past? Nuramon stepped closer to the stone. Only now did he notice that something was leaning against the crystal. He had overlooked it, so mesmerized was he by the figure itself. It was a sword with a belt and sheath and, next to it, a strung bow and a quiver full of arrows. “Why aren’t the weapons sealed inside with him?” he asked Wengalf.

“An intelligent question. A question a dwarf would ask.” Wengalf stepped up beside him and looked up at Nuramon’s old body. “You and I spoke often about death. Thorwis told us that your soul would return to Albenmark when you died. And there was no one in Albenmark who could tell you about your own history. You should know that, back then, you had to put up with some derision there because you had been reborn.”

Nuramon’s thoughts turned to his clan. No doubt they were still living in fear that something would happen to him and the next Nuramon would be born among them.

Wengalf continued. “But you were certain that the road would lead you back here if you lost your life. You said, ‘If I die, look after my weapons. In my new life, I will come for them.’” Wengalf shook his head. “Back then, we laughed. We never realized that death would come for us so quickly. Those are your weapons. You were an outstanding archer and a master of the sword.”

“I was a good archer? Hard to believe.” Nuramon could certainly handle a bow reasonably well, but he was a rank beginner compared with the master hunters of Albenmark.

“You have to get used to the fact that you were once different than you are today. One day, you will break through the barriers separating you from your memories. When that happens, your skills will grow.”

“As yours once did?”

“That’s right. When we fought the dragon side by side, I knew my previous lives only from the texts that I had left for myself, as well as what I got from the Book of the King and from my family’s stories. On my deathbed, I told Thorwis the story of my battle against the dragon so that I could find out about it again in my new life. Then they crowned me, for I have never passed from this life without wearing the crown. And then I died. But I did not have to work hard to get the memory back again. I managed it in the next life.”

“If you can remember, then you also know how it is . . . to die.”

Wengalf laughed. “Death is no more than sleeping. You nod off, and later, you wake up. Some of us dream. They see the Alben, see the silverlight, the past, or the future. But the meanings of these dreams . . . only the wisest can tell you that.”

“You mean Thorwis.”

“I have often tried to get him to tell me something about these death dreams, but he says he has never dreamed in death and can’t talk about things he knows nothing about.”

“Have you dreamed?”

“Yes. But whatever it was I saw, I have to keep it to myself until the end comes.”

Nuramon did not ask any further. He looked down at the weapons at his feet and picked up the bow. Maybe that would bring his memory back. He wanted to know about his life in Albenmark in the past. And perhaps, unlike Thorwis, he had dreamed in death.

The bow was made of pale wood, the string of a material completely unknown to Nuramon. It glittered in the light. It had to be one of the enchanted bows he had heard of in the stories of his childhood.

He stroked the bow’s smooth wood. It had not degraded with the years. An odor took him by surprise. He sniffed at his fingers, then at the wood. He knew this wood better than any other in Albenmark. It was the wood of Ceren, the wood his house was built from. His thoughts turned wistfully to home. He had left too thoughtlessly and had not said his farewells like one who would never return, not even to Alaen Aikhwitan. With this longbow, he would always carry something with him that reminded him of home. But where did the string come from? It looked like a thread of silver. He slid his finger along the string, testing it, then plucked at it. It rang with a clear note, like a lute.

“You used to turn your nose up at our crossbows and say a bow was better.”

“And was I right?”

“A weapon is only ever as good as the man behind it. By that rule, the bow
was
superior to the crossbow. Take it. Maybe you will find your old talent with it again.” He picked up the quiver. “We made these arrows for you. They are a special gift, because bows were never meant for dwarves. Look at the tips.” He slid one arrow from the quiver. The arrow tip was polished iron. “Since the day of your death more than three thousand years ago, they have been lying here. They are not damaged in the slightest. That is the magic of dwarven metal.”

Every time the dwarves spoke about the time he died here, he wondered how many lives there had been between that one and the one he was living through. Three thousand years were a very, very long time, even for an elf.

Wengalf held out the quiver and belt to him. Nuramon leaned the bow against his leg, then he accepted the quiver. Wengalf grinned. “You haven’t forgotten everything. The way you lean the bow like that . . . just like then.”

Nuramon was surprised. He had not done it consciously at all.

Then Wengalf handed him the sword. “This is your sword. A narrow blade from earlier days, when dwarves and elves stood at the forge together.”

Nuramon took the sword in his hand. It was light for a long sword. The pommel was disk-shaped, and the cross guard was thin and did not offer the hand much protection. The grip looked short, but it fit snugly into his hand, as if made especially for him. Nuramon drew the weapon from its sheath and inspected the blade. It was longer than the blade of Gaomee’s sword. It had no fullers, but the weapon was still light. That could have been explained only in part by the thinness of the blade, but thinness alone was not enough. The metal looked like regular steel. It must have been enchanted, Nuramon thought, but he could sense nothing of that sort, although he had grown deeply sensitive to the presence of magic ever since the search for Guillaume.

“A plain sword, yet still enchanted,” Wengalf declared. “You once told me the sword was an old family heirloom.”

So this was his sword. Who knew in how many lives he had carried it? Now he owned two swords that had been used to fight dragons. One was bound to this life, the other to an earlier one. Nuramon looked again at the body he had once filled. He would carry Gaomee’s sword until the day came when he remembered his previous life and the deeds of the dead warrior before him became deeds from his own past.

Departing from his old body and the hall it was in was not easy. He had the feeling he was leaving something behind in there.

Reluctantly, he followed the king to his hall, where the guards were waiting for them. Even though Nuramon had become familiar with the passages since his arrival, he could have spent centuries in this kingdom without uncovering all of the secrets the mountain world held. If any elf in Albenmark were to discover how much he liked this place, the mockery he already had to bear would only increase. The elves knew nothing of the dwarves these days. But how could this race sink so far into oblivion that no one even knew that they were the children of the Darkalben? King Wengalf traced the reason back to the dispute that had finally divided the elves and the dwarves. The dwarves had never recognized any elven queen as ruling alongside Wengalf and had waged a war over the matter, finally turning their backs on Albenmark forever. And afterward, in Albenmark, the dwarves were relegated to the status of characters in faery stories, and the children of the Darkalben to myth.

Nuramon wished he could stay there and learn from the dwarves, to one day return to Albenmark as one who had achieved complete recall of his earlier life. But one thought of Noroelle, and his longing and his fear for her was already driving him away again. What would his beloved make of this place? He did not know the answer to that.

They went together to the massive door, where Thorwis waited. The old sorcerer was wearing a radiant white robe and held a staff of petrified wood in his hands. “Heed my words, Nuramon Dwarffriend.”

It was a name he had heard often in recent days. And this time, too, it sent a shiver down his spine.

Thorwis continued. “The deeds you have done at the side of our king will never be forgotten. I and those loyal to me had our work cut out for us in convincing King Wengalf that his place is here and that another must go with you to find the oracle Dareen. It fell to me to choose your companion.”

“Have you made your choice?” asked Wengalf.

“Yes, my king. It was not easy, because from all sides came voices urging me to select this or that dwarf. I had a difficult time deciding, not wanting to favor one over another. But then I noticed that fate had already made my decision for me.” He pointed to a row of well-armed soldiers. “Here comes your companion.”