He mounted the steps, looking at the gate’s misty surface in awe and tempted to touch it, but then the thought of dragons rising up through it banished that idea. He could daydream later. Flipping the staff upside down, he inserted the crystal into a hole. At once, a cone of blue light shot up into the sky from the gate before extinguishing, the gate’s glistening surface turning to smoke with a slight whoosh, tendrils drifting upward. He could now see through the empty oval to the floor beneath.
Matt sighed in relief and came down the steps. “I guess that was it.”
The staff sent another pulse up his arm, but he didn’t know what it meant. Maybe something else was causing that. With the gate off, he decided he didn’t care what else lay around here. Besides, maybe the gate always gave off that reaction. Once again he lamented the lack of owner’s manuals or general knowledge of how things were supposed to work. Maybe if he meditated or something, he could learn such ideas from Soliander’s memories.
“Now we can go home!” Ryan gripped his shoulder in congratulations. He sighed in relief. “I can’t wait to see Daniel.” His bright eyes turned to Anna and she frowned, looking away.
“We should return to my estate,” remarked Lorian, “on the way to Olliana. Let us depart.”
As Matt left with the others, he suddenly realized Cirion and Nola were gone and remarked on this.
“Damn those two!” Rognir spat, unhooking his axe. “I bet I know just what they’ll be up to when we leave, too. Looting this corpse!” He gestured at the dragon, which surprised Matt.
“Why?” he asked.
“These scales, teeth, and claws are worth a fortune,” the dwarf answered gruffly. “Lorian, as much as I love Arundell, I will stay behind. I have two heads to bust open.” With that, he quickly said his goodbyes and stomped off through a doorway, clanking all the way. He stood little chance of sneaking up on Cirion. Matt noticed Anna looking after him regretfully. Was she regretting not learning more from him?
Ryan sighed. “It’s just as well. I don’t trust those two and don’t want them with us anyway.”
“Agreed,” said Eric and Lorian in unison.
They left Castle Darlonon, making an uneventful return to Lorian’s estate, a group of thirty elves meeting the weary travelers along the way. The forest teemed with them as they hunted down ogres and restored peace below the mountains. Since many an elf stopped to offer kind words. The quest had finally become almost fun now that it was over, and their worries were largely forgotten as they gathered with Lorian in Arundell’s meeting room one last time.
In discussing Raith’s involvement, they concluded someone might have to return one day to deal with the wizard, assuming the dragons or any traps left by Soliander didn’t get him first. If he learned to use the ore, he could lie in wait for someone to open the gate and spring a trap of his own, so coming back sooner rather than later was agreed upon. With the real Soliander on the loose, the gate could be reopened again, and were a duel to happen between the two wizards, with dragons eager to destroy them both, the consequences could be terrible for Honyn. They assumed Soliander had opened the gate to get more soclarin but had no answers for why he’d left it that way.
Due to his questioning of Matt, they surmised Soliander knew nothing of where the other champions were and wasn’t involved in the substitution. It was now apparent that the summoning had been altered in some fundamental way, since Soliander lived and yet Matt had come in his place. The real Ellorians could refuse or were spared, but their replacements could not, which suggested they might be summoned again and again, which no one wanted to think about.
Soliander’s behavior concerned Lorian most, for it was quite unlike the man he’d known, raising serious questions. What had he been doing all this time? Where had he been? Did anyone know he still lived? It seemed unlikely, but then why was he hiding his existence? Did he have a new identity and a new life to go with it somewhere? Why was he acting this way? If the other champions lived, were their personalities so distorted as well? Soliander seemed to think they existed somewhere. Was he looking for them? And why? His actions suggested sinister intent, not a man searching for his friends, so finding them might spell trouble for the others.
Matt hoped answers would come soon so they could also escape the quests, but Soliander didn’t seem amenable to polite conversation. It seemed likely that the Ellorian Champions were free as well, and despite no reports of them appearing home, perhaps they had done so secretly so they’d be left alone. A chance to speak with them might come sooner than they wanted because the real possibility existed that, instead of returning to Earth, they would be returned to their counterparts’ homes instead if the spell couldn’t tell the difference between them and the real champions. If so, Lorian promised to visit. He recommended telling the truth of their masquerade to the elven court, which had the power to send him across worlds as needed. Such aid would be invaluable and the elves would certainly keep the secret.
They decided to keep the truth about Soliander from Queen Lorella and the rest of Honyn, however. It would raise too many
