TELAVALIETH
Mornhavon the Black had climbed these very stairs.
Karigan had seen it. She’d been there. He’d stepped onto the
terrace and reached for her. Even in the dawn of the morning after,
as she gazed down at the stairway that descended into the fog of
the valley, the incident was still so real, so present, she could
almost feel Mornhavon’s touch on her flesh. She
shuddered.
With one last glance
at the moondial, she followed Yates down the stairs, backtracking
Mornhavon’s own footsteps.
Blackveil was as
dismal this day as those preceding it, but it darkened even more as
they left the high ground and entered the fog of the valley. The
stones that made the steps were either naturally level or hand
carved, but covered with the sopping mosses and lichens that made
everything so slick. Some rattled when stepped upon. A few were
missing entirely, lost somewhere down the slope, forcing the
company to scramble to the next solid step, their feet sending
loose scree cascading into the valley.
There were several
switchbacks, but the continual descent made Karigan’s knees ache,
so she relied on her bonewood staff to buffer the impact of each
downward step she took.
Yates stumbled ahead
of her.
“You all right?” she
asked him.
He only grunted in
response.
Karigan thought
about lending him her staff when he paused a few times as if to
gauge how to proceed to the next step. He’d then continue, but
tentatively, clinging to trees as he went down, or leaning into
boulders alongside the stairway. His hesitation caused some
grumbling from those waiting behind.
As they neared the
bottom, the fog created a false dusk, but Karigan perceived a
change in the terrain. The stairs meandered through a field of vast
boulders, which must have tumbled down the slope in some long ago
time, for they were well settled and blanketed by deep moss. Ferns
the size of small trees protruded between the boulders, their
blotched and blackened leaflets sutured together with the strands
of spiderwebs. Wiry beards of lichen draped down from the branches
above, which those ahead slashed out of their path. It was as if
they entered an ever more primeval world.
“Thank the gods,”
Yates muttered when they finally reached level ground. Karigan was
relieved herself.
Graelalea did not
pause to give them a rest, however. They continued along a path
that was more mud and ooze than anything else, the ferns rising
around them like a forest. Soon they came to a sludgy stream and
followed its bank for a while. Pitcher plants grew alongside it,
but not the normal sized, diminutive ones Karigan was accustomed
to. These, like the ferns, were oversized vessels the size of wine
casks.
One of the pitcher
plants quivered. The hind legs of some mammal, like a hare, kicked
over the lips of the carnivorous plant, unable to free itself.
Karigan looked away, sickened.
“You know,” Ard
said, “it all sort of works.”
“What does?” she
asked.
“The forest. It is
in balance with itself, the predators and the prey. Even the plants
have adapted to it.”
“You’re saying the
forest is healthy?”
“It’s a twisted
place for certain,” Ard replied, “yet it is in balance with itself.
Perhaps in time it would come to resemble more of what we’re
familiar with on our side of the wall.”
As long as Mornhavon doesn’t come back, Karigan
thought.
“The balance is
wrong on both sides of the wall,” Spiney said from the end of the
line. “All the etherea trapped here, and barely any on the other
side. This is not balance.”
“What d’ya want
then?” Ard asked acerbically. “To knock down the
wall?”
They waited for
Spiney’s answer. Karigan knew it was exactly what some Eletians
wanted, possibly including Spiney, who had once tried to kill her
for, in his opinion, interfering with the wall. The Eletian,
however, did not respond.
Graelalea halted,
and before them was a delicate span that crossed the stream. To
Karigan’s eyes the arch was almost paper thin, entirely unlike any
other bridge she’d ever seen, without voissoires or keystone,
without spandrel or abutment walls, just the treadway, impossible
and eloquent in its simplicity. It was carpeted and draped with
moss so it was impossible to see how it was made, but if it was
stone, it surpassed even the legendary craft of the
D’Yers.
“Telavalieth lies
across the stream,” Graelalea said. “Or what remains of it.”
Without another word, she stepped onto the bridge.
Karigan expected the
bridge, fragile as it looked and subject to the ravages of
centuries, to collapse, but it did not. The rest of them followed,
and when Karigan reached the apex of the arch, she was glad the
bridge still stood, for she would not have liked crossing through
the stream. It was murky and stank of rot, and several glistening
snakelike somethings slurped in the
stagnant water. She hastened the rest of the way to the opposite
bank.
“What do you suppose
that was in the water?” she whispered to Yates.
“I didn’t see
anything,” he replied with a frown.
They trudged onward
and soon Karigan discerned an opening before them, a lighter shade
of gray. The Eletians took off at a run. The Sacoridians hesitated
for but a moment, then pursued the Eletians. When they reached a
clearing they halted. It was as if something had come in and
scraped the forest floor to its bedrock. Nothing grew there, not
even the pervasive moss and lichens, even though the clearing did
not look recent. In fact, the rock was smooth as though melted and
fused. What kind of power could do that to granite?
On the edges of the
clearing stood crumbling buildings wrapped in tree roots as if the
very trees were intent upon crushing them little by little over the
passage of years.
“Gods,” Ard
muttered.
Spiney fell to his
knees and loosed a keening wail that rocked Karigan backward. The
other Eletians bowed their heads. Everything in the woods
stilled.
“What is it?” Grant
demanded.
“Telavalieth had a
small grove for its Sleepers,” Lhean answered. “We are standing in
it.”
“Sleepers? What do
you mean Sleepers? And what grove? What happened to
it?”
“When our folk tire
of the waking world, they leave it for the long sleep and become
the hearts of great trees until they are ready for the world
again.”
Karigan remembered
the Eletian prince Jametari explaining it to her. If she lived an
endless life like the Eletians, she imagined she’d want a respite
as well.
“Your people turn
into trees?” Grant was incredulous.
“No,” Lhean said
with an edge of annoyance to his voice.
By now Spiney lay
prone on the ground. He did not shake with tears. He made no
sound.
“Lhean,” Karigan
said quietly, and pointed. “Is he all right?”
“Ealdaen is of
Argenthyne. It may be he knew one who dwelled here.”
Ealdaen. So Spiney had a name, and if he was of
Argenthyne, then he must have fled before Mornhavon’s invasion a
millennium ago ...
“What happened to
this grove?” Ard asked.
Spiney—Ealdaen—rose
to his feet and turned his searing gaze upon Ard. “Mornhavon seak mortes.” Then he strode
off.
Ard scratched his
head. “What did he say?”
“ Mornhavon killed
it,’ ” Karigan replied, surprised to hear the words coming from her
own mouth.
Everyone looked
sharply at her.
“I didn’t know you
spoke Eletian,” Grant accused.
“I ... I don’t. His
tone said it. And the evidence is beneath our feet.”
“She is correct,”
Graelalea said, pointing at fused stone. “Mornhavon destroyed the
grove with his power, and enough so that it would never again take
root.”
“That is not all he
did,” Lynx said quietly, gazing at the ruins in the
forest.
They took their
midday rest in the clearing, a few of them peering into nearby
ruins. It was not easy to discern the original appearance of the
structures for it was as if they’d become part of the trees
themselves, absorbed by sinuous, snaking roots. Architectural
details of stonework and sculpture remained, though most of it was
badly damaged.
Karigan wandered
toward the ruins as well, but paused to gaze back at Yates, who sat
alone in the center of the clearing, staring at his knees. He’d
become oddly quiet. Something was eating at him. If it kept up,
she’d shake it out of him later.
A glint through the
window of a nearby building caught her eye. She peered inside, but
it was all shadow and stank of mildew. Curious as to what lay in
the shadows, she drew out her moonstone. Instantly light filled the
interior and she caught her breath, for on the opposite wall a
mosaic flickered with life, a scene of a young maiden with a
garland of flowers in her hair and her lover reaching for her. The
backdrop was of a summer forest in all its shades of green with the
azure sky above. Karigan’s eyes feasted on the colors after the
dullness of Blackveil.
The artist had
captured a story in motion, a moment in time, the light of
Karigan’s moonstone rippling over the shining pieces of the mosaic
making birds in emerald green and sapphire blue seem to fly; a deer
in the distance looked back at her as if pausing just before
bounding off into the forest. Would the maiden rebuff her lover, or
would she fall into his arms for a kiss? Was their love destined or
forbidden ? Karigan wondered if the mosaic depicted a scene from
some tale of Argenthyne, or if it portrayed the inhabitants of this
. . .
Yes, a house, Karigan thought. Whatever furnishings
had once existed in the room had rotted away long ago, but beneath
the dirt and dust on the floor was intricate tile work. She could
not discern the designs, but they seemed to weave together in a way
that made her think of music.
She closed her eyes
and could almost hear the music. It flowed like water, sounds of
laughter, and Eletian voices. When she opened her eyes, the
moonstone still illuminated the room and she thought she saw filmy
figures swirling in motes of dust in some lost dance.
But no, it was just
the play of light on shadows in a place long abandoned and the
whining of biters in her ears. What had happened to the occupants
of this house? Had they been destroyed by Mornhavon’s
forces?
There was a cry and
Karigan tore herself away from the window to see what was the
matter. The others ran to Hana who was looking through a doorway
into another building. She did not appear to be in any danger, but
Karigan ran anyway, and when she peered over Ard’s shoulder to see
what everyone else was looking at, she reeled away rubbing her
eyes.
Skulls. Skulls piled
high to the ceiling.
She dared look in
again. They filled the room from corner to corner, the bones matted
with moss and darkened by ... soot? Striations scarred them, the
gnawing of rodents. Gaping black eye sockets, empty, soulless. The
people of Telavalieth.
There was no tale
left for the beautiful maiden and her lover. Not here. None would
know their story. They were all dead.
The Eletians huddled
together and Solan sang, his voice pure, the sound of rain. The
sorrow wrenched Karigan inside.
A tentative touch on
her arm. She turned. It was Yates.
“What—” he began.
“What is wrong here?”
“Look inside,” she
replied, “and you’ll understand.”
Yates shifted his
stance, his expression uncharacteristically fearful, his gaze fixed
somewhere past her shoulder.
Now alarmed, she
asked, “Yates? Are you all right?”
“I can’t look
inside,” he said, passing his hand over his eyes. “I can hardly
see.” He squinted. “It’s gone now. My sight. I’m
blind.”