The Rift War (9 page)

That flamboyant little gesture brought her own magic to mind. Emrillian felt some pride
that she had functioned so well in the attacks they had faced, even as instinct told her the ache in
her head came from improper control. She knew Mrillis would take her aside for refined lessons
soon enough.

"Imagine the chaos and danger, for both worlds, if Moerta's people blundered upon this
tunnel. Many there have the potential to work magic," Mrillis continued, after taking a long sip
of the tea. "They simply lack the energy necessary. Let me remind you, not all Athrar's followers
stayed inside the dome erected over Lygroes. Many crossed to Moerta. If anyone has magic in
the age to come, it is because of the blood of Rey'kil ancestors."

"You're sure magic will extend over the whole planet again, once the dome falls?"
Grego's eyes gleamed. "I can't decide if people will be thrilled or terrified. Karstis and Shalara
were prepared, somewhat, and even they got a good shock."

"The question is whether the easier access to magic will be a good thing, or the
beginning of the end for our world." Mrillis turned from the fire. A cup rose, was filled, and
floated toward Emrillian. "I am glad to see you among us again, child."

"I feel much better," she said, answering the unspoken question. She stood, caught the
cup in mid-air and settled down in front of the fire, Mrillis on her right hand, Grego on her left.
"Though ashamed at my weakness. More lessons?" she asked, when her grandfather caught her
wrist and she felt the questing of his spirit against hers as he checked her health.

"Discipline must be learned through practice." He nodded and released her wrist. "When
you are ready, we will go. A little more than three hours of riding, we will be at the Vale."

"That's something I still don't understand."

The frustration in Grego's voice made her want to laugh.

"The Vale of Lanteer is supposed to be a beautiful valley, full of springs and orchards.
Paradise." He put a world of feeling in the word. "How can it be underground?"

"Because it is not, as you say, underground." Mrillis settled back against his saddle,
eyelids lowered in his lecturing posture. "Nor, I am sad to say, is it a beautiful valley. Long ago,
it might have been, but it has been so tightly wound with Threads, it has changed. It is more a
moment of halted time than an actual place, now, after all these centuries. My teacher, Graddon,
has slept there since I was a young boy. I am firmly convinced he knew of its future need, to
preserve Athrar's life and the hope for our world, and that is why he left me clues to find it, to
find him. I dearly hope..."

He shook his head, his eyes darkening with thoughts that made his mouth flatten with
either pain or sorrow. Emrillian couldn't decide which. "Suffice to say, the Vale is the turning
point of our journey. The crux of all we have worked for all these years."

* * * *

The Tower of Bo'Lantier
The Kingdom of
Quenlaque
Lygroes

200 years after the defeat of the Nameless One

"Maybe you can tell me, Ectrix." Martus, the guardian on duty that moon in the Tower
of Bo'Lantier, turned his back to the white-gold enchanted flame that burned without fuel in the
wall niche. "Why do some no longer believe in the return of Athrar and his heir?"

Time stopped in the domed room. The lanky man and the sun-browned boy looked at
each other. Despite the warm spring morning, the chill in the gray stone tower grew stronger.
The sunlight streaming through the arched window glanced off well-polished armor on its rack.
The ceremonial bridles and bells the man had been cleaning sparkled. A bird landed on the sill of
the window and chirped a question at the tableau. The silence broke and time flowed on.

"Sir?" Ectrix blinked, startled, and shifted on the bench where he sat polishing his
shield, a gift from his brother, the Regent.

He had finished his duties for the day, seeing to Martus' armor, feeding the horses and
chopping wood for that day's cooking. He could have been outside, practicing archery, but he
liked to sit in the tower and talk to the Valor. Unlike other guardians, Martus was enjoyable
company. He told stories and talked to Ectrix like he had already earned his spurs as a Valor.
Other guardians treated him like a child--and he was nearly fifteen.

Ectrix liked these times. Martus was better than the tutors back at Quenlaque Castle. He
asked questions that made Ectrix think, instead of just repeating his teacher's words back to him.
Like now. He wracked his brains for an answer.

"I think," he began slowly, "it's because five generations have passed since Mrillis and
the Queen of Snows raised the dome and Athrar went away to his healing sleep, and no sign of
the heir has come. Two hundred years is a long time to wait, sir."

"Just two hundred?" The man chuckled, a weary sound that bothered the boy. "I thought
at least the Regent's family would remember the enchanter's words." Martus sat down, easing his
lean frame into a hard, tall chair.

"But I do remember." He nodded earnestly. "Athrar's heir now shelters in Moerta. When
Lord Mrillis cast the enchantment, time slowed for all who remained on Lygroes." He shrugged
and gave an apologetic grin. "I don't understand that part, sir."

"It means that while we live days, the people of Moerta live years. You think the two
centuries we have waited here is long?" Martus shook his head and closed his eyes, slouching in
the stiff chair. "The last time Mrillis the enchanter was here, I dared to ask him how much time
had passed in Moerta since the separation. He told me nearly two thousand years."

"I'd like to see that world, sir."

"So would I." Martus opened his eyes. He looked tired. "Ectrix, I'm only thirty years old.
Being a guardian, spending my life waiting and watching, hoping that no danger comes through
that tunnel, makes me feel like I am three hundred. I want to travel the tunnel beneath the sea and
see that other-time world before I die."

"That would be an adventure!" Ectrix tried to imagine the world beyond the enchanter's
protective spells. What changes could two thousand years bring to the world outside the
dome?

Martus stood slowly, staring over the boy's shoulder. He raised his arm just as slowly,
pointing at the opposite wall, his eyes getting bigger, his skin going pale, then a moment later
flushing dark red.

Ectrix turned and looked where his superior pointed. In the niche where it had stood as a
signal for generations, the golden-white, dancing flame had changed to royal blue. It held still, as
if made of glass or ice.

"The heir is coming," the boy whispered. His gaze turned to the open window. Below,
hidden in shadows and trees and tall, lush spring grass, was the mouth of the tunnel to the
other-time world.

"Go!" Martus' voice cracked. "The Regent has to prepare."

For a moment, Ectrix drank in the colors and enchanted beauty of the signal flame. Then
he tore himself away and dashed down the steps. Five seconds to snatch up the saddlebag of
provisions, a water skin, and his cloak. He barely took time to saddle his horse before mounting
and digging in his heels.

"Baedrix!" he shouted to the sky, the wind forcing the words back into his mouth. "She's
coming! The heir is coming!"

* * * *

She had felt the tingling of the portal at least ten minutes before they reached it. The
growing sense of the thinning wall between the tunnel and the Vale of Lanteer made the hairs on
her arms and the back of her neck stand up, and filled her with a sense of well-being. Such a
strong sense, she had to fight the urge to sing at the top of her lungs, to leap off her horse and
spin in a wild, child's dance, her feet never touching the ground.

Their torches dimmed as they approached the portal. A blue and silver sparkling light
shimmered around Mrillis, outlining his shape, enhancing the colors in his clothes as he passed
through the wall, then the opening became visible, as if the enchanter had been the key.

The energy shimmered across her skin, rainbow lights shooting from her fingertips like
rockets for a few seconds as she followed her grandfather. She felt like she had twenty hours of
sleep compressed into a flicker of time. Emrillian turned to watch Grego pass through the barrier.
He stared, mouth dropping open, as he looked around at the new place they had entered.

"Now wait a minute..." Grego stared as the roof of the tunnel vanished in bright, soft
light.

Emrillian smothered a chuckle behind her hand, watching astonishment and disbelief
war on his face. She had wondered how long it would take him to notice the change.

Sheer walls of stone glistened as if made of crushed jewels mixed with severe black and
gray stone. Light flared from balls of blue and green luminescence. They oozed from the ceiling
like drops of water until they detached and floated, gently bobbing in the air over their heads.
Emrillian felt a gentle tingling in the air. Her hair lifted from her scalp as if stirred by wind.

The soft, faintly amber light came from everywhere around them. Pillars of rock in
muted rainbows blocked her vision, but couldn't mute an impression of vastness. She
remembered what Mrillis had told Grego during their earlier stop, that the Vale of Lanteer was
no longer a valley. She wondered if the rock pillars had once been trees, if the colors came from
the birds and flowers that had been here, alive, absorbed when the Threads wrapped around the
Vale and pulled it out of the fabric of time and space.

"How did we get here?" Grego blurted. He dismounted when Mrillis did, staring all
around, his head moving like on a loose pivot.

"Long ago, when I was young and arrogant and didn't know what was impossible, I
anchored the Vale of Lanteer to this part of the tunnel. It is a good sign, that the doorway opened
at our approach, without my having to ask." Mrillis stepped over to Emrillian's horse and offered
his hand to help her dismount. The somberness in his eyes made him a stranger for a
moment.

Emrillian choked, swallowing a cry of protest. This was supposed to be a happy
moment. She would see her parents again, after sixteen years. Her last glimpse of her father had
been of a pale, emaciated man, wrapped in the dark haze of approaching death. Now, Athrar
would be strong and healthy. She wanted him to laugh and leap from the place where he had
slept for centuries, and snatch her up into the air like he had done when she was a child. She
wanted to watch him wake her mother with kisses and tickling, so they would laugh and battle
with pillows, just like when she had been a child. Then she would leap in among them and all
would be well with the world, just for a few short minutes.

Mrillis offered her his hand. His touch communicated a chill to her blood and she fought
a need to weep. What did he fear? Would awakening Athrar bring about the destruction of the
Vale of Lanteer?

"Do you think they will both be awake, when we reach them?" she whispered.

"Knowing your mother... I would expect her to come running. I remember how your
grandfather, Efrin, used to scold Meghianna for growing up, when he wanted her to stay small. I
suppose your father will be upset that you can no longer ride on his shoulder. "

Emrillian laughed a little, and choked on the sound.

"Once we are finished in this place, no one will visit the Vale of Lanteer until prophecy
is fulfilled." The enchanter's voice trailed off. For a second, Emrillian thought his eyes grew dim,
his skin transparent with great age.

"Grandfather, are you well?" she whispered, squeezing his arm. "We can rest here a
time, if you wish."

"No, dear child." His voice grew stronger and he smiled at her. She linked her arm
through his and they took the first steps together, to cross the cavern that had once been the Vale
of Lanteer. Grego followed. Enchantment kept the horses quiet and still in the archway between
tunnel and Vale.

The cavern narrowed a little, and sloped downward. The blue and green lights following
the three visitors cast multiple, queer shadows, from all angles, making it hard to judge shape
and distances. Emrillian counted her steps. When she reached twenty-three, more light blazed
around them. The blue-green bubbles of light halted. The shimmering, new light grew
stronger.

Luminous pillars of muted rainbows spilled down from a hazy spot halfway to the
vaulted ceiling, enveloping two still figures stretched out on a simple pallet on a raised stone
platform, like a bier.

"Who is that?" Grego whispered. He gestured toward a shadowy niche not far from the
bier. A tall, robed figure lay in the niche. The only distinguishing feature was that he had no
hair.

"Ah, that is Graddon," Mrillis said without turning to look. "My old master. For whom
my Ceera named the Zygradon."

"Will he ever awaken, Grandfather?" Emrillian asked.

"Only the Estall knows."

When they were halfway across the glass-smooth floor, a sound like a sudden, soft gasp
came from the two sleepers. The cloth covering their forms shifted slightly, and the sounds of
breathing grew stronger, louder, more steady in a few heartbeats. As her eyes grew accustomed
to the shifting haze of the light, Emrillian made out more details of the two people lying before
her.

A man and a woman. Even with her fading memories of her last view of her parents,
Emrillian somehow expected them both to be robed and crowned as king and queen. The man
wore a plain, faded, dark blue tunic and shirt. The kind of clothes a convalescent would wear,
comfortable and warm, and easily laundered.

He didn't wear a helmet or chain mail or armor. He didn't even hold an empty scabbard,
as the tales and ballads popular among the Archaics pictured Athrar Warhawk in his mystical
resting place. A quilt with a simple spiral pattern in blue and green covered him partway, as if he
had moved in his sleep and dislodged it. Emrillian remembered her mother making that quilt
when they lived in the Stronghold. She had promised to teach her daughter to make one just like
it, when she was a little older.