Faeterus did not amplify on this bitter comment but did halt long enough to conjure a path ahead of them. The sage had become so dense, their progress had slowed to a snail’s pace. When the sorcerer spread his hands, the thick bushes split apart as if cleared by a scythe. They set out again and Favaronas continued.
“‘The Father rose on the wind and departed to the—’” Favaronas frowned. “Southland? Homeland? ‘The place on which he stood was named
The abbreviations had eluded Favaronas’s attempt at translation. Faeterus calmly provided it.
Faeterus swung around to face him. Although the front of the hood was only a few feet away, Favaronas could make out little more than a faint suggestion of the face within its deep shadow. “That is our destination.”
“Are you him, the Father Who Made Not His Children?”
“No. He passed out of this world long ago.” The hood shifted and Favaronas glimpsed two dark eyes within. “I was the only one to escape. I have come back to claim the heritage of the Lost Ones, my people.”
Favaronas shivered, If the sorcerer were telling the truth, then he was unbelievably old. Recalling his own ghostly encounters with the valley’s half-animal inhabitants, Favaronas blurted, “Then you’re not an elf!”
“Thanks be to the Maker! For fifty centuries I have lived in the shadowy edges of the mighty elf race. I found Father’s writings, and learned how to prolong my life until the day of retribution. That day has finally come! Your people’s power is broken. I shall complete their destruction. When I stand on the Stair of Distant Vision, the key to unlocking this valley’s power will be revealed to me. I will make that power my own and use it to work my will!”
The sheets of parchment fell from Favaronas’s hand. He finally understood the danger awaiting them all.
The hooded head turned away from him, but the sorcerer’s pointing finger sought him out again. Favaronas’s slack mouth closed with a snap, and his lips once more vanished.
“Pick up your notes and follow,” Faeterus said. “What you know, you will never tell.”
There was nothing but dreamless void. He could sense nothing at all beyond himself. Then a voice spoke and nothingness became… something. The voice spoke again, and he felt himself slowly sinking in the boundless darkness. By the time he made out the words, he had fallen hard onto a cold, gritty surface.
“—Where are you?”
Hytanthas raised his head from the coldness beneath it. “commander?”
“Can you hear me?”
Pain thudded inside his skull. The sound of the Lioness’s voice seemed to ebb and flow with the pain. Pushing himself up onto his hands, Hytanthas called to her again. The effort of speaking loudly sent paroxysms of agony lancing through his head, and he finally gave up shouting. It was clear that although lie could hear the Lioness as if she were only a few feet away, she couldn’t hear him. She seemed to be conversing with others, but hers was the only voice be could hear.
The blackness around him was absolute. Elves are gifted with the ability to see even in lightless conditions, yet Hytanthas could see nothing at all. He feared he had been blinded. Fighting back panic, he concentrated on his other senses. His questing hands encountered hard stone arching overhead and stone walls on either side, but open air in front and behind. He was in a tunnel. He recalled the Lioness describing the tunnels her expedition had explored beneath Inath-Wakenti. The return of that memory brought the rest flooding back.
He had been flying night patrol on Kanan. A group of will-o’-the-wisps appeared, trying to surround him. At his command the griffon dove. Down and down they plummeted, Kanan never wavering although it seemed they would smash into the blue soil. They leveled off only yards above it. The lights were left behind, and Hytanthas did a foolish thing. He relaxed, exulting in his triumph over the mysterious lights. A trilithon loomed out of the shadows, two tall, white stones supporting a third laid horizontally atop. With Hytanthas’s hands slack on the reins, Kanan chose to dive under the lintel. His rider didn’t react in time. Hytanthas’s forehead struck the stone, and he fell from the saddle, unconscious. Awakening a short time later, he saw no sign of Kanan, so he shucked his dented iron helmet and leather skullcap and prepared to walk back to camp. The instant he dropped the helmet, a will-o’-the-wisp appeared. It touched him, and next thing he knew he was here.
Was that what happened to all the others who vanished? Were they whisked away and deposited in the maze of tunnels underneath the valley floor?
