Chapter 2

Immediately, time stopped for Esfalan. He heard the blood in his ears slow, and stop. Mercifully, the pain in Esfalan's head ceased. The sun outside began to shift the angle it shone through the cliff opening, and the angle of the light changed, became higher, then lower. And then Avatharel began speaking. He spoke in many voices at once, the cacophony of voices interweaved amongst each other, some running in a strange counterpoint, some causing alliteration and resonant beating against others. The sun set outside.

Some of the voices were loud in Esfalan's mind, and some were softer, and he began to despair of hearing let alone remembering any of the words. As the sun rose and fell, he found that there was a certain feeling of fullness that was growing slowly, as the words seemed to fill the pool of his mind much like the rainwater collected in Ehladriel's vast public cisterns.

The sunlight was strobing ever faster outside the fissure in the cliff wall, now twice in the time a person might count to five. One short and vibrant string of words caught his attention, and Esfalan found Avatharel recounting his first dalliance with a young female elf.

As Esfalan concentrated on that stream of words, the words seemed to sink out of the pool of words that his head was holding and seemed to instead sink into Esfalan's very soul. And he remembered now, remembered what first love was, though Esfalan had never yet had a first love, never taken the elven lass to a shady bower, yet he remembered Tarulevie, her kisses, her downcast eyes peeking up through lashes, the sudden joy he felt when she had convinced him he had not misunderstood her meaning. Esfalan was shocked at some of the intimacies and yet there was no way to turn away.

And still the flow of words went on. Some tales were of later years, some of earlier, no rhyme or reason could Esfalan find in the pieces he caught. The sun and dark flickered through the crack in the cliff wall, amazingly, too fast to make out, leaving the cave in a kind of grey half-light while the tales of Avatharel's years went on.

Esfalan heard a dominant thread in the muddle of voices, and began to listen closely to this tale. Suddenly, it was as if he were living it, the colors and smells and feels grew around him until it was almost as if he were there - almost, since it was dreamlike, a remembrance, and yet it was new to Esfalan.

Verothlen. The sending was Verothlen, summoning Avatharel to the War College on Mindar. The sending came upon him while he was riding at the side of the column of his dismounted company, dismounted so as to avoid raising dust. He was riding in order that he move quickly - a single horse would not raise the dust that 300 warriors, the headquarters squad, the quartermaster and cooks, and all the wagons would. He had left 40 warriors and the quartermaster and wagons with the horses, picketed ten leagues and three days behind.

Avatharel was not given to the cursing the human barbarians were, nor even that the soldiers of the city-state his elven company was assisting in the long battle against the barbarians were wont to display. Instead of cursing at the sending, he rode back for his second, also mounted, at the rear of the column.

Unfortunate that the sending could only convey a sense of the one who tried for contact, and some sense of urgency; Avatharel could not manage even that much over the 400 wide leagues separating him from the War College.

The elf, his second, saluted Avatharel, touching his right fist to the buckle on the wide leather belt running between the sword belt on his hip and to the quiver on his shoulder. A gentle ripple flowed over the elf's torso, the fine chain of the mail shirt bunching and falling like waves on a water-mirror.

"Steady on our sweep, Vanime, and I must return to the rear, at least as far as a therelvara. I am summoned to the War College, and I may not be able to refuse the summons. If so, I will send a horse and an order establishing you as Commander."

"Yes, Sir."

Avatharel rode hard back up his route of march. If he rode quickly enough, the risk of being intercepted by a barbarian band or lone stragglers moving back into the area behind the passage of the company was lesser. He walked and watered the horse once an hour, and rode up the road all the day and into the night.

Late that night, just before the tenth hour of the day, Avatharel reached his retinue. He quickly found the quartermaster's tent. Scratching at the cloth, the elf within rose quickly. Avatharel made his need quickly known, and was soon given a pallet.

Avatharel never again saw Vanime, or at least not until after the mask was made, Esfalan realized. There was a certain sadness that came with the realization, for Avatharel truly loved each of his soldiers as a brother in arms. Esfalan had never cared for anyone outside his family in this way - not even Anathel.

Short hours later, as the first streaks of golden red lit the eastern sky, Avatharel was awake, and on his feet, boots and weapons on. The young aide assigned to him, who had been left behind with the train as his weaponry training was only newly begun, brought a horse to him. Avatharel clasped the youth by his forearm, and the youth clasped his in return.

"A pity I could not spend time with you, Seragen, for you are a fine lad. If I am summoned back to the War College, and do not return on the day after the morrow, wait for Vanime, when you see him, this letter is for him. It is his orders and my request for him to assume your mentorship."

On a fresh horse, Avatharel cantered to the north and east. Six hours later, he exchanged horses at an elven watch-post, and cantered on, through the beginnings of civilization. He passed numerous guard posts and some small garrisons of human soldiers. Syrisia was still a new concept for the humans, building a nation on the barbaric continent. Avatharel believed it was necessary to raise humans from barbarism, but of late was coming to believe that the prolific humans had numbers enough to deal with their own barbarians.

And yet, barbarians were poor trading partners, and notoriously unreliable. The Old Enemy was far too sophisticated for undisciplined cultures to withstand; they'd been subverted several times into believing they were on the side of the Faithful and had only been furthering the aims of the Dark.

The Mindirrim had found it better policy to build their allies into a nation than to have a secondary enemy sometimes nip at their heels.

Avatharel would rather be finding Esvatrelii, the Dark Elves, willing agents and playthings of the Old Enemy, and their works.

Soon, the sparse farms were slowly making way to patchwork fields, and on the sixteenth hour of his ride, the roads were stone, with low walls on the sides, and the farms had given way to towns.

Finally, as the sun was setting on his left shoulder, he topped the final rise, and down below him, spread like an apron, was the city Syrith, houses and trees and streets and small vegetable plots tumbling down the gentle slope to the vast sea.

He urged his tired mount down the slope, and the horse, with an easy downhill walk and the promise of stables with grooms with brushes and oats at the end of the walk, gave a glad whinny and started down the road.

By torchlight Avatharel had navigated the city streets to the Mindirrim enclave-embassy. Within the Mindirrim enclave, the streets were illuminated by hanvarri, maged glowstones, and the stone streets were much easier to travel. He quickly reached the large barracks halls and stables.

Giving his horse to the groom who met him, he strode to the Commander-General's barracks building. As he entered, he turned off the main hallway and towards the scribes' wing. At the door to the chamber with the theravara, he found a pile of scraps of paper, a quill, and an inkpot. He wrote his name on the paper, and blew the ink dry, drained the quill back into the pot, and stoppered the pot. He then placed the scrap with his name on the top of the pile of the names of those waiting to use the theravara in the morning.

Making his way to the nearest barracks-hall, Avatharel sought out the Charge of Quarters, and was given a room number and a chit for food from the kitchens at the far end of the hall.

A bland, tasteless meal later, Avatharel sought out his bed and slept the sleep of the dead.

Esfalan still had not moved, and the grey-flicker of the sunlight-dark coming through the window crack in the cliff wall did not appear to have changed. Esfalan wondered idly how much time outside the cave was passing. Inside his own head, the voice stream was going on as strong as ever, though he realized that the voiced words at the bottom of the reservoir of Avatharel's words in his mind were slowly sinking out of the reservoir, and into his soul.

He wondered how deep the pool of words could get, since Avatharel's words were still coming, far faster than the words at the bottom were soaking into his being.

The strong voice he had been listening to spoke again, and Esfalan found himself drawn back into the tale.

Avatharel woke, and washed at the communal basin at the end of the second-story hallway. He quickly donned his boots and weapons, leaving his mailshirt rolled in a slim tube cleverly clipped to his quiver. The arrows within he wrapped in a cloth, the bundle held snugly in the quiver. The wrapped arrows signified that Avatharel considered himself in garrison, and not ready to go to the field at the notice of a single moment.

Quickly, he tracked down the Charge of Quarters, and obtained his chit for food to break his fast. After making a meal of dried figs and toasted cereal grains, he trotted across the square to the Commander-General's barracks, and to the room he had left his name at the night before. He quickly got in line, redeeming his scrap of paper with his presence outside the chamber, and settled in to wait.

The line moved one user every fifth-hour, as marked by a sand glass by the door, operated by a clerk. After one hour, the magi inside were replaced by a second pair.

When it was Avatharel's turn, two mages came in with him to change with the previous pair. Avatharel assured them their service was not needed. One sniffed, disbelieving that Avatharel could operate the theravara, the other simply sat down to watch, ready to help if needed.

Avatharel relaxed, and in the eye of his mind, pictured the mana around him. Focusing on the rolling waves crashing into surf a quarter-mile away, he drew the mana from the water falling off the peak of one of the waves, losing some of the mana along the way, but letting a trickle of the nearly limitless supply travel up the conduit he had reached through. When he had enough in the air about him, he fed it into the theravara, sending the mana chasing itself through the crystalline structure. As the structure absorbed the mana, he brushed a fine wave of the stuff slightly rotating the faces of the crystals-within-crystals to match the pattern of the theravara in Verothlen's chambers. When it was sufficiently close, the internal crystal facets within the theravara began to resonate with Verothlen's, and more and more of the crystal structure aligned with it's remote near-twin, until the process ran unassisted like wildfire through the glass-like globe, and it was twin to the remote theravara.

Avatharel looked up at the mage who had sniffed at him earlier, making eye contact with the mage who had underestimated him. With a smile on his face, he pulled a short utility knife from his belt, and tapped the globe. The perfect crystal rang clear and loud, for near a full minute, causing it's twin in Verothlen's study to ring as well, surely drawing the attention of anyone in that far room.

Avatharel was well familiar with the common usage of the theravara, speaking towards it, and letting it resonate with words spoken in the room. Usually, a mage on the far end would use mana to magnify the sounds created by the twin ball resonating.

And yet, this day, he felt like confounding the magi in the room with him, to prove some sort of point, he supposed, but did not feel like examining it further, as he was on a time limit. Accordingly, he used the remaining mana he had drawn to ripple through the crystal structure with the forefront of his thought. He knew Verothlen could pick up the subtle vibrations caused in the twin globe with mana, and let the mana convey that thought to his own mind. It was as secure a conversation as could be, since Avatharel would feel the mana lace an eavesdropper must place on one or the other theravara, as would Verothlen.

He waited but a moment, then Verothlen's thought bloomed into his mind. "Ah, it is Avatharel! That is good, since I must summon you to me; I have artifacts you should study. Their secrets have defeated all who are here, and you were always my best puzzle solver."

Avatharel shrugged mentally. "Verothlen, I have works here I must tend. It will take me weeks to sail there; how can the need for studying whatever you have found be great enough to justify that?"

"My friend, they were ejected from the anva-soraved."

The mention of the fiery mountain Gate drew Avatharel's full attention like nothing else on Feldare could. The Gate to the nether, the place where chaos ruled freely outside of the bounds of his world was a permanent feature on Feldare, a volcanic island in the Sea of Mindar, fueled not only by the fires of the belly of Feldare, but by the Gate fixed in the mantle of Feldare under that spot.

Some said Feldare chafed at her wound, and tried to expunge the gate; others said the energies and heat produced by the Nether leaking into Feldare made the mantle - a region of rock under the surface of Feldare heated to jelly-like consistency - boil and erupt through the ocean floor there, causing the mountain to form over tens of thousands of years.

Whatever the cause, the Mindarrim were garrisoned in the Mindar Isles to combat the forays of the minions of the Old Enemy that from time-to-time tried to enter Feldare through the gate, or communicate with agents already on Feldare, such as the Esvatrelii.

"I shall come at once."

Verothlen was silent a moment, then projected, "Avatharel, I feel the need is great. Always before when Soraved was active, there was some great mischief afoot. Do you trust me, my friend?"

Avatharel gave immediate response. "Of course I do. You need not ask."

Verothlen seemed to be firmer in his projection through the globe. "Do you need your horses or armor? Anything not on your person?" After receiving a negative response, he continued, "Very well, then, look at the room around you. There are two other magi in the room with you - there, and there." Avatharel had looked around the room.

Surprised, he was about to speak, when the room went dark.

Some interminable time later, Avatharel came to realize he was standing in Verothlen's chambers, the old mage snapping his fingers in front of Avatharel's face. Strangely, Avatharel did not feel astonishment. As he thought about it, he must have intuited some warning of what Verothlen had intended to do before it happened.

He focused his attention on Verothlen. "Relax, old friend, I am here with you. What possessed you to try to fetch me by magery?"

Relieved, Verothlen turned and headed for a sideboard. Over his shoulder, he answered, "My boy, it was perfectly safe. I had you all the time. Now, where is that wine?" The last sentence was muttered, as if Avatharel had not been meant to hear it, but Avatharel knew better.

Verothlen turned with two crystal goblets of deep red wine. He shuffled back to Avatharel, and handed him one. "Drink up, my boy, drink. We have some catching up to do."

Avatharel shrugged off the irritation he felt. "Verothlen, had you no worry that my soul would not come with my body?"

Verothlen gave a weak smile. "No, my boy, not at all. You were safe as a babe in its mother's arms."

Avatharel pressed through the bluster. Idly, he said, "I had heard that the previous attempts to fetch a dog by magery had met with less than wonderful success."

Verothlen seemed indignant. "My boy, how could you? I knew it was safe. After all, a dog could not hold mana. Since your soul was engaged in holding the mana together with your body, both came when I tugged upon your body. I shall have to write a seminal paper on the subject someday. Safe as crossing the street." He tossed half the goblet of wine down his throat, met Avatharel's level gaze, and tossed the remaining half down after the first.

Avatharel kept his gaze on Verothlen. The older mage sighed, and asked plaintively, "Are you going to drink that or not?"

Avatharel relented, and touched his lips to the fine crystal, wetting them slightly. He then placed the crystal on the corner of a table, and stepped away from it.

"Show me what you have found, please. I have just come 400 leagues to see it, do you know?"

The two climbed down a long flight of stairs, and out across a small enclosed yard, to a solitary stone building in the center of the yard. None of the buildings or walls around the yard had any windows or doors, save the one they had walked through. The ground was firmly packed, with nothing that could fly or that could trip a mage investigating delicate objects.

Inside, the building was furnished with a stone table, with a bench down one side. In sconces on the wall were hanvarri, illuminating the room.

Two mages of the War College were in the room, each studying an object on the table. One object was cylindrical, made of some dark material, and the other was conical, and made of a similar material. Both were approximately the diameter of a large wagon wheel at the base, and a bit over the height of a full-grown elf. The conical object had a radiused top, rather than a sharp point.

"They are heavy," commented Verothlen. "The cylindrical one is about the mass of a fully grown elf. The conical one... is heavier by far. We think it must have lead in it. The materials are like nothing we have ever seen before, and mana does not penetrate through to peer inside. We are reluctant to simply drill, not knowing what is inside."

Avatharel nodded absently. He was already examining the cylinder with a fine mesh of mana settling over the surface. As he tried to penetrate the surface with it, the mana was reflected and scattered randomly. Avatharel knew of no solid object that behaved that way - but some kinds of sand and powdered glass did. He examined the surface in rapt fascination, noting the uniform randomness of the mana-scatter was constant all over the surface.

Shrugging, he tried a different tack. He took the thin knife from his belt, and scraped the knife over the surface. A fine powder was scraped off, and he quickly examined his knife edge - dulled by the material. Feeling the powder with his fingers, it was abrasive. Struck again by the similarity with fine sand, Avatharel wondered if it were not somehow stuck onto the object like sand would stick to a child's wet leg at the beach.

With a rough file made of mana, Avatharel began to sand off a patch of the material, and very soon was rewarded with the bright flash of metal. Humming an old war-march, he sanded the whole object in seconds using mana, picking it up in the air over the table, and collecting the dust in a neat pile at the edge of the table. The two War College mages in the room looked shocked at how quickly Avatharel had dared to molest the cylinder.

A finer mesh of mana polished the cylinder, and soon join marks were revealed. The cylinder appeared to have a join at its' waist. A quick touch with mana, and there was nothing left on the exterior of the object to block further study.

He looked at the War College mages, and raised a sardonic eyebrow. He then collected Verothlen with a glance, and they left the building and the courtyard, and traipsed back to Verothlen's study, while the War College mages began their study of the objects anew.

Once ensconced in comfortable chairs - this time, Avatharel took the wine - they began to discuss what had been found.

"I am glad we left before I showed any sign of fatigue." Avatharel looked pleased.

Verothlen chuckled. "Do not ever let them know how tired you are, and they will build legends about you."

"You say it came out of the anva-soraved?"

"Yes. It and fifteen others that we know of. Both of the same type, it seems."

Avatharel mused, "Always before, when a demon or Esvatrel brought something through, it carried whatever it came with." Avatharel continued, "I had always assumed it required a mana shield to keep the molten rock and ash of the trip through the hell around the gate."

"A reasonable assumption, I suppose." Verothlen's eyebrow was raised. "You are suggesting the sandy covering was there to keep the heat from harming the contents of the metal containers? But why, when there is nothing to keep a demon from carrying it through?"

"This is what troubles me, Verothlen. Our Old Enemy has plans within plans, always plans to cover setbacks, plans made by taking the long view. The Old Enemy usually takes direct action some tens of generations apart; we know this is the end of this cycle of activity. And now here is something new."

"It is worse than new, now, is it not? It is new on new... what could be inside these things on the table?"

Avatharel smiled. "I now believe your manner of transportation for bringing me here was justified. Let us let those two work on the puzzle this evening, and on the morrow I will begin anew."

Esfalan wondered if the changing of night and day were slowing. It was hard to tell if the grey twilight seemed dimmer or not. He thought the wizard Verothlen seemed familiar, but could not recall his own thoughts with so many of Avatharel's memories speaking to him, soaking into his mind.

Avatharel broke his fast with Verothlen, and the two of them discussed the findings of the team the night before. "The cylindrical one contains a number of small spheres, those containing some kind of liquid inside. Preliminary guesses as to the nature of the liquid are some sort of beef broth."

Avatharel stared at Verothlen. "Beef broth?"

"Yes, it has us rather puzzled."

"What are the spheres made from?"

"We think it is gelatin, from rendering cartilage or horse hoofs, that sort of thing. Anyway, we are going to remove those and study them, but we would like your help this morning to study the other artifact. Everyone who has tried to probe it with mana reports that there seems to be nothing inside, yet it is very massive."