The Crystal Chalice (Book 1) (38 page)

 “You could do with a
bath, Relisar!” called the Prince. “Come and join us!”

 “Certainly not!”
exclaimed the old Sage primly and turned his back. This unwise move caused the
two swimmers to exchange significant glances. They silently swam across the
pool to Relisar, caught hold of the tail of his robe and with a mighty tug,
pulled him in.

 “I can’t swim! I can’t
swim!” choked the old man, frantically struggling in the water.

 Celedorn laughed. “Then
put your feet down, you old fraud. The water is only waist-deep at the edge.”

 “Oh!” said Relisar,
ludicrously deprived of his dramatic drowning scene. He climbed out, his grey
gown and beard streaming water. “You two have no respect for my age,” he
announced sulkily and took himself off to procure a dry robe.

 Celedorn got out
shortly after him, leaving Andarion to enjoy the pool by himself. When he had
dressed, he headed up the valley, past Relisar sitting cross-legged, his nose
stuck in a book, his sense of injury apparently forgotten. Following the pools
in ascending order up the valley, he came across Triana seated on the bank,
fully dressed but with her hair still damp. She gave a start when she saw him.

 “Where is Elorin?” he
asked.

 “She went further up
the valley to see the waterfall.”

 He frowned. “She is another
one who is always wandering off on her own.”

 He turned on his heel
and headed upstream. The valley was getting steeper and the carved basins were
giving way to a series of stone steps down which the water tumbled. On rounding
a large tree, Celedorn saw the waterfall some distance ahead. What he saw next
caused him to stop dead, then swiftly step back behind the tree. He had caught
a fleeting, tantalising glimpse of a lithe figure standing in the waterfall. He
jammed his back hard against the tree, his desire for Elorin surging up, almost
overcoming him. A dilemma now presented itself - should he heed his better
nature and walk quietly away, knowing that it was wrong to spy on her, or
should he satisfy the demands of his lower nature and look round the tree?
After a brief struggle, his baser nature won, and feeling surprisingly guilty,
he stepped silently within sight of the waterfall again. However, his moral
dilemma had resolved itself because she was no longer there. Feeling a little
shaken, he guessed she had descended to a dense thicket of young willows on the
far side of the river to change.

 Elorin, unaware that
she had been observed, was indeed amongst the willows. While Celedorn retraced
his steps to the shrine, she quickly dressed and was beginning to plait her
hair, when a slight rustle at the edge of the dense screen of trees attracted
her attention. The long, slender green leaves of the willows were very thick
around her, cutting off her view of the river. She remained silent for a
moment, listening intently, but could distinguish nothing above the sound of
the waterfall. She lifted her towel and was about to leave, when the rustling
sound came again and the leaves began to quiver slightly. Instinctively, she
reached for her bow and setting to the notch the only arrow she had retrieved
from the battle of the cleft, she moved stealthily forward.

 When Celedorn returned
to the glade where he had left Triana, he found it empty, apart from her pack
which was sitting all by itself where she had left it. He picked it up and
looked around amongst the trees. A thrush was singing unconcernedly, its clear
trill arising above the sound of the river. He called her name but there was no
reply and vaguely he began to feel uneasy.

 “Perhaps she returned
to the shrine and forgot her pack,” he muttered to himself, but on his return
to the shrine, the mystery deepened. All their possessions sat on the stone
floor of the shrine but there was absolutely no sign of anyone. The blanket on
which Relisar had been sitting, was still folded beneath the tree, his book
beside it. The large pool was empty. The breeze rustled restlessly through the
leaves of the trees, the birds sang and the water spilled merrily over the edge
of the basin, but all these very normal sounds failed to lessen the nebulous
feeling of disquiet growing in his mind.

 He set down Triana’s
pack and his hand strayed to his sword. Just then, he heard a soft whistle
overhead. He looked up into the branches of the tree above him, just in time to
see a net of some soft green material like moss descend upon him. Instantly,
his grip on his senses began to fade. Sounds became muffled and distant, his
vision blurred and he sank to his knees. His attempts to get free of the net
seemed clumsy and slow. He fell on his side, unconsciousness overcoming him
like a suffocating fog. Just before he descended into blackness, he thought he
heard a voice say in the old language: “This one is strong - see how he
resists? We must treat him with great care.”

  When Celedorn awoke,
he felt as if he had been travelling through a long dark tunnel for many hours
and consequently he was dizzy and disorientated. Cautiously, he opened his eyes
to discover that he was lying on a stone floor facing a wall. His next discovery
was that his hands were tied uncomfortably behind his back and his ankles, too,
were tightly bound. With a struggle he managed to roll over and found his four
companions lying on the floor in similar state. Each looked as if they were
peacefully asleep. The room they were held in was not large and had no windows
or furniture of any kind. The only relief to the stone walls was provided by a
heavy wooden door.

 Elorin was nearest to
him, her eyes closed, her face a little pale. He wriggled across the floor to
her, anxiously scanning her face in the dim light afforded by a single torch
burning in a bracket on the wall.

 “Elorin,” he called
softly. “Elorin, wake up.” She made no response. He leaned over and managed to
nudge her with his shoulder. Still she did not stir. His face was close to hers
and unable to resist, he leaned towards her and gently kissed her forehead. He
was relieved to find that her skin was warm beneath his lips.

 He had just begun to
test the strength of his bonds, when a disembodied voice remarked in the old
language: “The dark one has awoken.”

 Frantically he looked
around but could perceive no one. Yet he was certain the voice had come from
within the room.

 “Indeed, brother,”
responded another voice in supercilious tones. “It appears to cherish affection
for the dark-haired female.”

 “Turog do not feel
affection,” observed the first voice dispassionately.

 “Neither do demons. See
how it struggles with its bonds?”

 Celedorn, enraged both
by being bound, and by being talked about as if he were an inanimate object,
replied sharply in the old language: “I am neither Turog nor demon and kindly
do not refer to me as ‘it’.”

 There was a shocked
silence. Then the first voice said: “You could be a demon in human form. You
look
like the sort of form a demon would take.”

 Celedorn was much moved
by this tribute. “Thank you,” he replied with feeling, “but if I were a demon,
I’d hardly be lying on this floor trussed up like a chicken.”

 “It has a point,
brother.”

 Celedorn was not
mollified. “If you wish to speak to me, then kindly do me the courtesy of
showing yourselves.”

 There was a moment’s
silence as his interlocutors digested that statement.

 “It wants to see us.”

 “Do you think it
advisable?”

 “I think we should risk
it, brother. It seems rational enough - if not exactly charming.”

 Slowly, by the doorway,
two men appeared as if they had just emerged from the wall. They were both
exactly alike - slender and fair - except that one was slightly taller than the
other. They were dressed in breeches and silver-grey tunics that blended well
with the grey stone of the wall. But it was their eyes that caught Celedorn’s
attention. They had no pupils or whites but were of a uniform deep
sapphire-blue, like looking into the sky on a summer’s evening.

 “It appears to be
disconcerted,” observed the taller.

 “Perhaps it is the
eyes. We never seem to get the eyes right. We should study its eyes and learn
to do better.”

 The other one wrinkled
his nose in distaste. “Its eyes are grey. Such an unremarkable colour.”

 “Who are you? “
Celedorn demanded. “And where is this place?”

 “It is curiously
abrupt.”

 “Should we answer it?”

 “No. We must satisfy
ourselves that it poses no danger.” Two pairs of blue eyes were turned on
Celedorn. “What are you? What nature of being? And how did you find the Hidden
Valley?”

 “As I told you before,”
replied Celedorn in some exasperation. “I am neither Turog nor demon. I am a
human being - a mere mortal man. I and my companions came to the valley by
chance.”

 The taller one turned
to his brother. “It claims to be one of the Children of Light.”

 “That is just what a
demon would say.”

  Enlightenment was
beginning to dawn on Celedorn. “Do you have my sword?”

 “Yes, we have it,” they
replied in unison.

 “Fetch it please. There
is something I want to show you.”

 “It might be a trick?”

 “It is bound. What can
it do?”

 The taller brother left
and soon returned bearing Celedorn’s sword in its scabbard. Celedorn had by
this time managed to sit up, but his companions slept on, oblivious to events
around them.

 “Now,” he said,
“withdraw the blade a few inches from the scabbard and tell me what you see on
it.”

 His instructions were
followed and the two brothers gave a soft gasp of astonishment.

 “Three intertwined
chalice flowers! No demon would carry such an emblem.”

 They stared at each
other, unsure what to do next. Celedorn cleared his throat to get their
attention. “When will my companions awake?”

 “Only when we release
them from the spell.”

 “Then how come I am
awake?” he asked dulcetly.

 The two brothers looked
at each other in consternation. “We don’t know,” they chorused together.

 They returned their
attention to the sword. “We must show this to Varinia,” they announced
decisively and immediately disappeared.

 When they had gone, Celedorn
once more began to struggle against the ropes that held him, bunching up the
muscles of his arms and straining against them, but to no avail. He had just
come to the conclusion that there must be a binding spell on the ropes, when
the door opened and the brothers returned.

 “The Lady Varinia
wishes to see you,” they informed him.

 One of the brothers
turned towards the sleeping figures and bending his gaze upon them, slowly
lifted his hand. Instantly, the ropes fell from them like autumn leaves and
they began to stir and stretch. Celedorn, also released, stood up flexing his
wrists and helped Elorin to her feet.

 “Where are we?” she
asked. “I was in the willows by the river and I think......well, something
seemed to fall on me. Then I woke up here. What has happened?”

 “We are being held
prisoner by these people,” he replied, indicating the brothers.

 Andarion looked at them
speculatively. “They are not armed,” he mused but Relisar nipped any thoughts
of escape in the bud. “They don’t need to be. They could turn you to stone with
no more than a glance. Do nothing for the moment.”

 The brothers indicated
that they were to leave the cell and they emerged into a long, lofty passage
lit by rank after rank of burning torches.

 “Where is this place?”
asked Triana fearfully.

 “I don’t know,” the
Prince responded, “but it appears to be underground. Look at the ceiling.”

 She looked up and saw
that although the walls were of dressed blocks of stone, the roof was
unfashioned and rough like a cave.

 They were escorted up a
flight of stairs and through a tall archway into a great hall. The walls were
lined with polished stones in subtle greens and blues that gleamed in the
torchlight like water. The roof was so high that in the dim light it had
disappeared, leaving the impression of an empty, black void above them. At the
far end of the chamber, the wall was hung with a huge tapestry embroidered in
gold and silver thread, depicting a waterfall surrounded by trees and flowers.
They instantly recognised the scene as the Hidden Valley. Placed in front of
this, was a carved chair cushioned in blue velvet, beside which stood a tall
golden harp. Occupying the centre of the hall was a long refectory table of
polished oak, flanked by rows of chairs. The table bore nothing except a tall,
silver candelabra lit with many pure white candles. The hall appeared to be
completely devoid of life.

 Their escort indicated
that they were to stand in front of the chair and as they did so, a side door
opened and a tall, regal woman, with golden hair held by a silver circlet,
emerged. She wore a flowing gown of the same grey fabric as the brothers and
bore the same blue eyes. Around her neck she wore a collar of the finest
sapphires that glowed with icy fire, but her eyes put them to shame. She
carried Celedorn’s sword in her hands.