“Where else?” Glanthon reasoned.
“With magic involved, there’s no limit to where they might have been taken. The next valley over, or even to the stars themselves.”
Favaronas’s testy response silenced the talkative warrior, but only briefly. Glanthon changed the subject, asking whether Favaronas had learned anything about the odd stone artifacts they’d removed from the underground chamber.
The archivist sighed. “Not very much,” he admitted. Each of the eight stone cylinders bore a brief inscription engraved on one side. Favaronas was convinced they’d once been real books, but had been changed to solid stone.
“I have deciphered the labels, at least partly. They are not, as I first thought, a forgotten dialect of Old Silvanesti. Instead, each syllable is an abbreviation of a longer word or phrase. The first is marked
“What does that mean?”
“I wish I knew.” The archivist recalled the discussion at the Speaker’s dinner, the night before they’d begun this journey. The cartographer Sithelbathan had said the furthest outpost of the ancient elven kingdom, Balif’s Gate, was supposed to have been located in or near the valley.
Glanthon looked over his shoulder at the three mountains, Torghan’s Teeth, receding behind them. “You think those stones are the ruins of that outpost? You think Silvanesti made them?”
“Not necessarily.” The imprecision of it all plainly made the archivist unhappy. “But I’m beginning to think the valley was visited by followers of General Balif, probably after the First Dragon War, thirty-five hundred years ago. We know from ancient tradition that Balif left Silvanesti under a cloud, or a curse, and eventually helped found the kender nation of Balifor. Some authorities claim he became a kender himself, but there’s no evidence for that theory.” He sighed. “Many relevant records are still in the temples of Silvanost, closely guarded. Others were lost in the First Cataclysm.”
“Perhaps these cylinders contain the true history of Balif!” Glanthon exclaimed.
Favaronas drew his geb close around him as if feeling a chill despite the desert heat. “Perhaps. One other possibility has occurred to me, but it’s really too frightful to contemplate.”
Glanthon had to prompt the scholar, reminding him of his duty to the Speaker, before he would continue. Even then, Favaronas looked around furtively, making certain no one was eavesdropping.
“Do you know much about the history of our race?” he asked.
Glanthon’s education didn’t extend much beyond reading, writing, and simple mathematics, He admitted his lack of scholarship.
Briefly, Favaronas described the founding of the first elven nation under Silvanos Goldeneye, first Speaker of the Stars. The land claimed by the elves, the land that would one day be Silvanesti, was then occupied by powerful dragons. Conflict ensued, the First Dragon War, in which Balif led his griffon riders to victory. The triumph was not Balif’s alone. The gods of magic sent a trio of mages to aid the elves. The mages were armed with five powerful dragonstones. Balif and the mages set a trap for the dragons, luring them into a final battle, then capturing their souls within the dragonstones. The dragons’ empty bodies were transformed to ridges of stone, and became part of the Khalkist range; they were part of that mountain range still.
Like all elves, Glanthon knew Silvanos had founded the nation that bore his name. But hearing the story, thrilling even in abbreviated form, left him open-mouthed.
“What happened to the dragonstones?” he asked.
“Let me quote the
In case Glanthon didn’t follow him fully, Favaronas added, “The exact location of Nemith-Otham is not known today, but I suspect-I fear!-Inath-Wakenti was once the Pit of Nemith-Otham.”
Glanthon was amazed. If Favaronas was correct, beneath the surface of the valley lay the greatest concentration of magical force in the world, the captive souls of one hundred dragons, and the nomads’ fearful respect of the place was entirely justified.
One dragon, just one, the formidable green dragon Beryl, had destroyed an army comprising thousands of elves. Even in death she had murdered elves. Plummeting from the sky, she had crushed the city of Qualinost so badly that the land collapsed and the White-Rage River rushed in. Nearly all the survivors of the battle drowned. The Speaker’s own mother, Queen Mother Laurana, had been killed, and the site remained flooded to this day, as far as anyone knew. The dragon’s rotting corpse was still at the bottom of the lake, giving it the well-deserved name
Glanthon was a survivor of that battle. Hardly a month went by that he didn’t relive in dreams the horror and gallantry he’d witnessed. Knowing well the havoc one green dragon had wreaked, he could scarcely comprehend the destruction a hundred creatures could do.
Seeing his stricken face, Favaronas reminded him It was only a theory, and it didn’t explain the ruins, the disappearing antelope the Lioness had seen, or the strange ghost that had passed Glanthon and Favaronas in the tunnel. The only hard facts the archivist had wrung from the scrolls thus far was that Someone, in sizable numbers, had occupied the valley, and they had a connection to the valiant, doomed Balif. The titles of the other seven cylinders were as cryptic as that of the first. He had puzzled them out as “Counting of the Tribe.”
“Halfway Order of the Breeding,” “Raising of the Pillars,” and “Sleeping of the First One.”
He thought it odd the labels of two of the eight randomly chosen cylinders mentioned “halfway”. Judging from the way the word was used, he felt it referred to a group of people, not a location.
“Whatever it means,” he said, “I confess I am glad to be out of that peculiar valley for good.”
Glanthon shook his head. “It may not be for good. The Speaker hopes the valley will be our new homeland.” Ignoring Favaronas’s shocked expression, the warrior added that he thought the valley, with its hidden entrance, abundance of water, and tunnel system, would make a fine haven for them.
“We must simply solve its various mysteries,” he finished stoutly.
Favaronas said, “The humans may be right about the place.
There may be mysteries there we should not disturb.”
“What about our people? Not only the thousands languishing in that filthy camp outside Khuri-Khan, but the hundreds of thousands who bear the yoke of foreign conquerors? Do we forget them and take the easy path to everlasting exile?”
Favaronas had no answer. Glanthon was a dedicated warrior. He found virtue in hardship and nobility in war. How could an archivist at least twice his age tell the proud soldier that his ideals were wrong?
He couldn’t. Instead, he silently vowed to continue his study of the cylinders. There had to be a way to get at the interior text, if any.
The westward ride progressed without incident. As dusk fell, the warriors camped just below the summit of a broad, gravelly hill. They’d come across no signs of nomads. The desert west of the mountains seemed as devoid of people as the Vale of Silence had been.
They had plenty of water from the valley, but rations were growing short. Only pine nuts and berries had been found during their foraging trips in the valley. Tis sterility caused much comment among the elves. Many were former herdsmen or farmers, and a few had been gardeners in the great city of Qualinost. In elven lands a gardener was no menial laborer, but an artist comparable to a sculptor, poet, or painter. They could come up with no obvious reason for the valley’s lack of game and edible plants. No two-legged hunters prowled its paths; it contained plenty of water; its climate was mild. The soil was sandy and poor in many places, not to mention having that odd color, but nearer the highlands there should be better minerals in the earth. Common sense dictated the valley should be teeming with life. Why, then, was it so silent and empty?
Favaronas had formulated an answer, but he did not share it with the others, not wishing to be drawn into a long discussion. The ghostly lights in the ruins were attracted to horses, riders, and even the murderous sand beast. He believed that, over time, the will-o’-the-wisps had cleared the valley of animal life, right down to the flies. Where the creatures had been taken he could not say, but the Speaker must consider this danger before bringing the entire nation to dwell there.
