The Gems of Raga-Tor (Elemental Legends Book 1) (30 page)

Eris shook his head and muttered, “And what of the other gift? What has a value greater than the value of life? Although mine certainly isn't worth much at the moment.”

“I know not,” Morengoth answered with a shrug. “For many years I have pondered that question, but I still have no answer.”

“Without that part of your obligation fulfilled, why did you think I was your mate?”

“Eris, though we are different, you understand that we are both men of a certain—vitality. For three hundred years I have lived alone. Can you even begin to comprehend that—alone? I have never even seen a woman pass through this forest in all that time. Can you even begin to understand what joy I felt at seeing you swimming in the pond? Those long, raven tresses clinging to your glistening body. And no less a body of supple strength equal to my own. I was ecstatic,” Morengoth explained as passion and despair poured from his heart.

For the first time in many years, Eris felt a knot of compassion tighten in his throat. He stared helplessly at Morengoth's desolate face. At the face of a kindred spirit, at the mirror of his own, very short-lived, despair.

“Though I have not lived three hundred years, I have a small understanding of what you feel. I’m having trouble surviving this one year, god or no, and I can see no way to help you. Without that yellow gem, I’m cursed to stay this way until my life is finished. You, at least, have a promise to cling to though that must seem very empty now,” Eris said. His voice was full of honest concern instead of bitterness.

Raga was nearly in tears again as much for himself and Eris as for the dragon man. What did he have left to be king over; a small patch of forest and a cavernous, empty mountain? What hope had he clung to that sustained his centuries-long solitude?

In spite of his turbulent emotions, Raga had to appreciate again the healing spring’s potency. He never expected to hear such words from Eris, and certainly not said with conviction.

“Eris, it's almost time for the new moon,” Raga ventured to say. “Maybe, just for a while, you could—”

Morengoth held up his hand to silence Raga when he saw Eris stiffen.

“You are a wily one, sorcerer.” He smiled sadly. “I know, as does Eris, what you are suggesting. But, you said it yourself; we are both men of a certain pride. Just having the appearance of his female form gracing my table would be more than I could bear. If, perhaps, we find some consolation in each other as we are, then it is good. Nothing more. Come. Let us go up to my living quarters. From there you can see far out into the forest. It is very beautiful with the snow. Then I will show you to rooms where you may rest. We will speak more tomorrow.”

Raga and Eris followed Morengoth through long, rough-hewn halls and up foot-worn flights of stone steps. The higher they went the more the rock of the mountain had been smoothed and polished. In niches hollowed out along the walls, Raga noticed plain and elegant urns. Meticulously carved and elegant, the designs of flowers and mystical symbols bordered many of the recesses. Here and there gold and sparkling gems brought the flowers to life. Beneath the urns and attached to the walls were crystal tablets carved with more symbols and what appeared to be an alphabet.

“What is written on these plaques?” Raga asked curiously.

“Names.”

“Names?”

“Of course,” Morengoth said and paused at one of the niches a few paces ahead of them. He laid a hand against the fat curve of a red and white urn sitting there. “Were you familiar with our customs, you would understand. These urns contain the ashes of some of our people. In a hall not far from here, is the Hall of Kings, and not far from there, the Hall of Warriors. In this particular urn, are the ashes of my ‘pata’. I believe your word is nursemaid, nanny, or something like that.”

“I can’t believe a nursemaid worthy of receiving such an honor,” Eris commented. “But, she was nursemaid to a king.”

Morengoth laughed.

“I am afraid we did not put such emphasis on kings and nobility as your people do. Naturally, the king and his court are given honor and respect, as there has to be someone to make and uphold the laws. But a pata also had a great responsibility in making sure all the children were cared for. Mine raised several hundred in her lifetime.”

“Several hundred? Must not have been very competent having to change families all the time,” Raga said.

“No, no.” Morengoth smiled. He continued up the passage. “A pata was a woman who, for a variety of reasons, did not bear children. She took care of orphans and helped the other mothers with their children. You see, our women bore two or three children at a time. Four was usually the exception.”

“That makes sense then,” Eris said. “Most of our people are hard pressed to deal with one or two at a time. I would hate to think of three or four all at once. But if you had so many, why aren't the walls covered top to bottom with urns?”

“Not everyone chose to remain within the caverns. The place for ashes was a very personal and meaningful decision. Some wanted their ashes spread near a favorite tree, cast into the stream flowing away from the pond, or taken to the highest peak and cast into the wind. Of course, there were also many who deserved only to have their ashes tossed in the cavern pits,” Morengoth explained.

“As I am king, good or bad, I will one day take my place in the Hall of Kings. Were you of my kind, Eris, you might earn a place in the Hall of Warriors. Seeing the types of weapons I gathered from your camp, I assume you are no stranger to the life of the sword.”

“No doubt of that,” Raga cut in quickly. “I’ve lost count the number of times he's threatened me with one thing or another. His ashes would best be thrown into the pits. Then, we would all be safe from him.”

“For shame, Raga,” Morengoth chided, but with a smile. He stepped aside to let them pass into a large room with a fire pit in the middle.

Eris, brows knit together, scowled at Raga as he walked by. Raga felt relieved. The real, unpredictable Eris was on the way back.

Eris walked to the balcony’s doorway and looked out. It was late afternoon near as he could tell. The sun shone weakly through heavy, gray layers of clouds, which promised another dusting of snow.

Raga accepted another cup of wine from Morengoth, who drank as well. Eris declined. He was having a difficult time as it was keeping ‘Erisa’ under control without having help in that direction. Feeling a deep stirring of uncharacteristic melancholy, he stepped out onto the snow-covered balcony. The lingering wetness of his clothing made him chill quickly, but he didn't care. Somehow the cold, cloying dampness seemed a companion to the cloudiness of his spirit.

What use was there in going on now? One just didn't demand a gift back from a god. Where did one even begin looking for a god, much less asking questions of such a being?

Though Eris wasn't one to give much credence to any god, he had an instinctive feeling that Tas-Moren was a little more than a statue adorning some dusty shrine. Or, with his luck, it was another elemental that had attained godhood in the primitive days of these long-dead people.

Resting his elbows on the stone guardrail, he looked down into the glistening, pristine forest. Traveling onward from the Moren Forest this time of year would be difficult at best, but travel where?

He wasn't sure and he knew, like Raga, he was running out of time. Even if they did earn the return of the red gem, their quest was likely at an end. There was no knowing where the yellow gem was now. Whether it remained in the realm of mortal men, or if it had somehow passed into the realm of the gods, Eris could only guess. Maybe Raga could find it using what was left of his elemental magic, but a mortal man just didn’t go demanding anything of a god. They rarely listened to a man’s begging prayer for a loaf of bread and would certainly not listen to something like this.

Hearing Morengoth laugh, his thoughts turned to their unlikely captor turned host. How could a man exist as Morengoth had? How could he have survived the loneliness within these gloomy cavern walls? Those thoughts frightened him, or rather, Erisa. Preferring his solitude most of the time, it didn’t bother Eris, but to Erisa, it meant the loss of her validation for living. She found no purpose, no family to care for, no one…to love. Eris pulled away from those thoughts.

It was almost three-quarters of a year that he had been under Charra-Tir's foul curse. Of late he felt that every day was a fight to find the anger driving him to his revenge. If not revenge, then at least to the annulment of the magic destroying his life.

Lost in the deep shade of melancholy it seemed that the ground below wasn't so far away. The snow offered a soft, sheltering blanket on which he might lie while waiting for the dancing flurries to cover him and meld him into the cycle of the forest.

From somewhere in the frosty valley came the echoing sound of a crystalline voice; a voice of such haunting, ethereal beauty that it made him shiver just listening. He had never heard anything like it before. He couldn’t hear the words, but the sound was at once happy but tinged with longing.

Eris turned his face in the direction of the sound. He saw nothing but the darkening shadows of the trees. He listened, captivated, until he could no longer bear the emotion it made him feel, the inexplicable sadness, the longing for companionship; perhaps for a lover to hold on a cold night. He struggled to drive those emotions away. They belonged to the woman he became. The woman who became more equal to the man he was as the days went by. He struggled to concentrate on the code that ruled his life. A warrior was disciplined to be a hard man of blood and steel. He didn’t want to feel his heart broken by an echoing song in a haunted forest.

“I am sorry to interrupt you, Raga, but you will have to excuse me,” Morengoth said, when he saw Eris clamp his hands over his ears.

Raga nodded and Morengoth stepped quietly onto the balcony a pace behind Eris.

“The ground is farther away than it appears,” Morengoth said perceptively. He understood only too well the lure of the snowy ground below.

“A pity, then again, perhaps not.” Eris paused. “Perhaps Raga’s idea isn't so ridiculous. Maybe I should let this spell envelop me and with the passing of time I will forget who I once was. My other form is obviously not displeasing,” Eris said, depressed. He didn't even feel appalled by his own words.

“Still you would not find contentment. You might fool others, but never yourself.”

“And now I see myself for the coward I am as well.” He turned his back to the forest. There was a sharpness in his voice that was not lost on the Dragon King.

“No, you may be many things, but a coward is not one of them. It takes courage to face each day as you have. It also takes courage to realize that the snowy ground below is as unforgiving as a length of steel, and that it is not the road for you. A coward runs from life and headlong into death without a thought, because he fears life and death equally. But he chooses death for the promise of unknowing, of forgetting,” Morengoth counseled. “From what Raga has told me, it seems to me that you take living quite seriously and are not willing to give it up so easily. I, for one, still hold fast to a hope that you will overcome your captivity, such as it is. I do not believe your coming here is without purpose.”

“But whose purpose?” Eris asked.

“Who can say? Perhaps for whomever it is that you pray? Tas-Moren’s? From whatever place it is that first-level elementals come?”

“Had I the number of years to ponder these things as you, then perhaps I would better understand what you’re saying, but I don’t. The life I lead is short at best. Every day that I lose to this curse only makes it that much shorter and its power increases over me.”

“And someday, should you overcome this situation, will you not give up your wandering and put away your sword?” Morengoth asked. “Otherwise, the day will come when a man, as young and strong as you are now, will take your life because of a slower move on your part. It would be a waste of a good man, in my opinion.”

“No. It’s not my way,” Eris answered, shaking his head. “I will not be bound by person or place. My only desire is to be free in the world for however long that will be.”

“As a much younger man I spoke those same words, but sometimes the presence of a good woman can make one reconsider the brash words of youth,” Morengoth said with a hint of a smile.

“It’s because of a woman that I now choose to remain alone. I played that game once and the price of losing was almost more than I could pay,” Eris said. His voice was quiet and sounded oddly far away. A troubled shadow flickered across his face, but Morengoth didn’t think he should inquire further.

Eris nodded his head toward the forest as again the wistful strains of song passed through the dark branches. “I hear that song again. I thought you said there were no women in this forest.”

Morengoth paused to listen, then drew in a deep breath.

“If she is here, then she lives beyond the boundary imposed on me,” he sighed. “I have listened to her voice for three winters now, but I have never seen her. Now you understand once more why I thought you were the promised one.”

Eris nodded and together they listened to the almost eerie song drift through the twilight of the day and darkness fell across the forest. It was then Eris realized he was nearly frozen stiff where he stood. A great shiver shook him. Morengoth smiled and offered up the warmth of his fire.

Eris seated himself on the fire pit’s low, rock wall and Morengoth sat in his customary chair. After a long silence, in which much wine was consumed, Morengoth spoke.

“I believe I have a proposition for the two of you,” he announced.

Raga raised his head in hope. “What sort of proposition?”

“I have decided that the price of the red gem is the woman whose singing has captivated me these past winters. Find her, bring her to me and I will return the gem,” Morengoth said.

Eris was sullen. “Where is the purpose in that, and what good will it do us? The yellow gem is gone for good and you still don't know how or by what means to fulfill the second half of the debt to your god.”