The Crystal Chalice (Book 1) (59 page)

 But Elorin was not
really listening to him, for she was looking with compassion at Celedorn. “You
look so tired,” she said. “In fact, utterly drained, as if you had been tested
to your limits.”

 Andarion, unable to
contain himself any longer, asked the question that had been tormenting him:
“What did you set upon her? What did you touch her with?”

 Celedorn looked at him
in surprise. “Did you not see it? I touched her with a chalice flower.”

 “You
found
it!
You actually found it! Yet.....yet I could see nothing in your hands, just -
just empty air.”

 “Ah!” exclaimed
Relisar. “You must remember what I told you. The chalice flower cannot be seen
with the eyes. Celedorn alone could see it because he looked with his
heart.”  He turned to him. “Is it still with us, my boy?”

 Celedorn shook his
head. “No, it vanished the moment Elorin awoke.”

 Triana’s eyes were
shining like stars. “What did it look like?” she asked eagerly. “Please tell
us, Celedorn, for no one but you has ever seen one.”

  “It is just as it is
described in the Book of Light. Its petals are clear as crystal and shaped like
a cup or tiny chalice. Its stem is of purest gold and its leaves as bright as
emeralds. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” He turned his gaze lovingly
back to Elorin and his voice sank so low that only she could hear him. “Almost.”

 In reply she reached up
as she had done once before and tenderly traced the outline of his face from
his cheekbone to his chin.

 Sensing the atmosphere,
the others considerately moved away to give them a moment’s privacy.

 Triana sighed
sentimentally. “Miracles still happen, Relisar.”

 “Yes,” he agreed, “but
the greatest miracle of all happened months ago in Ravenshold.”

 “How did he ever find
the flower of legend?” asked the Prince, still slightly overcome by events.

 “We will ask him in due
course, but first I must find out more about Elorin. You see, I have always
blamed myself for robbing her of her past. Now I must know all about her.”

 “I cannot think of her
as Lissoreth,” Triana complained.

 Elorin heard her and
turning from Celedorn’s embrace, called: “I will always be Elorin, because I
have been happier as Elorin than I ever was as Lissoreth. I may remember my
past but I have no wish to reclaim it.”

 Andarion came and sat
on the blanket beside her. “Tell us about your past, Elorin, about your life
before you appeared in the stone circle.”

 She smiled
mischievously at him. “Why certainly, Your Highness, but could I have something
to eat while I do so, because I am absolutely starving.”

 Triana jumped up as if
stung. “What am I thinking of! You have not eaten since Korem, and come to
think of it, neither has Celedorn. We will celebrate Elorin’s awakening by
sharing a meal together.”

 Elorin made to rise but
found herself pushed back onto the blankets. “I need no help. I have learnt
from you how to do these things, so this time you must allow me to wait on
you.”

 “Do you realise,” said
Andarion, “that if you are truly descended from Tissro, you are of better birth
than any of us? Tissro was of the royal line of the High Kings. Even the kings
of Eskendria cannot claim such a lineage, for we are descended from the noble
family who were governors of the province of Eskendria in the days of the Old
Kingdom. The Lords of Westrin are much the same - descended from a family whose
rank was noble, but not royal, in the days before the Fall. Until now it was
believed that all those of the royal line had perished.”

 “How do you know of
your descent?” Triana asked curiously. “It is, after all, many generations
since the fall of the Old Kingdom.”

 “My family possesses a
very old copy of the Book of Light, so old that it predates the Fall, and in it
there are records of all the births and deaths occurring in my family since the
time of Tissro. After Tissro disappeared and the Destroyer began his invasion,
Tissro’s wife fled south across the Harnor to Serendar and there gave birth to
a son - a child who never knew his father. They settled in southern Serendar,
but in her haste to escape from Korem, Tissro’s wife left all her possessions
behind and found herself in difficult circumstances. How she survived is not
recorded, but when her son was ten years old, he was apprenticed to a scribe,
learning to copy out editions of the ancient texts. He excelled in his
profession, and put behind him his grandiose lineage. As the years passed, he
prospered as a merchant and scribe. He took over his master’s business and
began to produce texts, beautifully illustrated in gold and silver, which became
much sought-after in the region. Except for the notes in the Book, the family
almost forgot their origins, as the Old Kingdom began to sink into legend. They
grew to be respectable, well-to-do Serendarian citizens, with the business
passed from father to son. However, when I was only two years old, tragedy
struck my family again. One night, one of the young scribes who had been
working late fell asleep and the papers he was working on caught fire. Soon the
whole building was alight. When neighbours saw the flames, they sent for my
father. Even though by the time he came, the building was ablaze, my father
risked entering it to try to save the young scribe. While he was inside, the
building collapsed and he was killed. I don’t really remember my father - I was
too young, but I do remember my mother’s grief, how she used to cry during the
night. Once again my family had lost everything and in order to provide for me,
my mother, who was still a young and handsome woman, married again. Ever since
my father died, she had been pursued by a local man who owned a fleet of
fishing boats. He had long admired her, but she felt nothing for him except a
slightly contemptuous tolerance. He was a coarse man and she considered him
beneath her. She also despised his three sons, left motherless when his first
wife had died some years previously. Any pity she might have had for the boys,
soon dissipated when she discovered that they were cast very much in the mould
of their father. Of course, it didn’t take him long to discover how she felt
and he resented it bitterly, losing no opportunity to humble or demean her.
Being of a somewhat sadistic turn of mind, he soon discovered that the easiest
way of hurting her was through me. I was to be made aware that all my noble
ancestry counted for nothing. I was a servant, of the lowest position in the
household. I must be made to realise that I was in his debt for taking me in -
another man’s child. I was not to be educated or go to school. I was to cook
and clean and wash clothes for him and his three horrible sons. Being much
older than me, and much bigger, the sons never missed an opportunity to torment
me. For example, they would lounge around, watching me wash their clothes and
then as soon as I had hung them on the line to dry, they would cut the line,
laughing fit to split their sides when the clothes fell on the dirty ground and
I would have to wash them all over again.” Her blue eyes grew dark at the
memory and her hand tightened into a fist.  Looking up, she caught the
distressed expression on Relisar’s face and shrugged off her anger. “However,
before my mother died, there were some good times. It was not all bad, you
know. She and I would disappear off into the marshes together and hide amongst
the tall, golden reeds. There she would teach me how to read and write, how to
translate the texts from the old language and often she would read to me the
thrilling stories from the Chronicles of the Old Kingdom. She also taught me to
hunt with the bow, bringing down the wildfowl as they came in to land amongst
the reeds. Sometimes I would be allowed to go out on the boats with the
fishermen - wonderful days, when the sea was blue and the spray dashed over the
deck. They were always kind to me, showing me how to steer or to bait a line.” She
sighed. “Then, when I was sixteen, my mother I think decided that she had done
all she could for me and just quietly let go of life. They said she was ill,
that she had a fever, but I know that she had decided that the time had come to
leave. She gave me the Book of Light with our family tree in it and warned me
to keep it well hidden from my stepfather, then she gave me what little money
she had saved. After that, she simply closed her eyes and was gone.” She drew a
shaky breath and felt Celedorn’s hand sympathetically gripping her shoulder.
“There was not much happiness after that. For nearly seven years I continued
with my base existence, then matters came to a head one day, when the younger
son cornered me in one of the barns and explained that he considered my duties
to be.....er.....a little more extensive than just cooking and cleaning.”

 Everyone else observed
a murderous look creep into Celedorn’s eyes at that point, but Elorin
continued, unaware of it.

 “Upon finding that I
didn’t agree, a scuffle ensued and only ended when I caught up a pitchfork and
stabbed it into his thigh. He screamed like a stuck pig, making enough noise to
be heard at Sar-es-Marn, but luckily the others were out in the boats and there
was no one else to hear him. I knew retribution would be terrible, so I ran to
my room and grabbing my few belongings, fled into the marshes behind the house.
I had nowhere to go, no real plan. All I knew was that I had to get away. I
also knew that no matter what happened, I would never return. Then, just as I
was making my way between the reed beds towards the causeway that led to the
road, suddenly I began to feel dizzy. I thought it was reaction to the fight
with my stepbrother, but the whole scene, the open stretches of water, the
reeds, began to whirl around me, then it all went black. When I awoke, I was
lying in the stone circle with two complete strangers bending over me.” She
smiled faintly at Relisar. “The most remarkable thing, is that all this time I
have been desperate to remember my past, to remember who I am and where I come
from, and now that I do, I find that it matters surprisingly little to me. This
last year is the only past that I need or want. The rest means nothing to me.”

  Andarion directed a
quizzical look at his cousin. “If I correctly interpret Celedorn’s expression,
I would guess that your stepfather will receive a very unwelcome visit from the
Scourge of the Westrin Mountains in the near future.”

 For the first time
since she began her tale, Elorin took heed of the dark look on her husband’s
face.

 “No, Celedorn. I have
no desire for vengeance. I am happy now, so the past doesn’t matter anymore. At
one time I thought that life could offer me nothing sweeter than the chance for
revenge - but I was wrong. It would mean nothing to me now - although,” she
added with a touch of mischief, “it would be interesting to see the expression
on my stepfather’s face when he realises just who he has acquired as a
son-in-law.”

 Celedorn smiled with
the others at that sally, but she noticed that there was still a certain
rigidity about his cheek muscles, which she knew meant he was not entirely
convinced.

  She leaned forward and
laid her hand insistently upon his. “Do not take this upon your shoulders,
Celedorn.”

 “I have a vengeful disposition,”
he replied, half joking, half serious.

 “A little, I must
admit, but vengeance never healed any hurt. If I am prepared to let the matter
go, then so must you.”

 She stared into the
slate-grey eyes, holding them for a long moment, awaiting his answer.

 “Very well,” he
conceded, “if that is your wish. You are a much better person than I am.”

 In response, her impish
smile flashed back. “Only intermittently.”

 He laughed aloud at
that, and she knew, with a sense of relief, that she had won him over.

  “Now tell me,” she
added, to change the subject. “What happened at the Hill of the Seven Crowns?”

 His smile faded. “That
is no easy thing to explain - indeed, I am not even certain that I can.”

 Relisar leaned towards
him eagerly. “Please try, my dear Celedorn, I must know. Indeed, I must.”

 “When I reached the
hill,” he began slowly. “I found its sides so steep that I had to abandon my
horse and ascend on foot, actually, on my hands and knees for part of the way.
When I reached the top, I discovered that there was a broad, grassy rim
encircling the edge of the hill upon which grew seven ancient oak trees. Their
trunks were gnarled and split with age but their branches were densely covered
with leaves as yet untouched by autumn. Within the rim, lay a shallow
depression like a saucer. The branches of the trees met right over this area
like a roof, rendering the light within, dim and greenish in colour. In the
exact centre of the hollow stood three ancient standing stones, uncut,
unsculpted, they might almost have been natural, except that a fourth stone was
placed across them to form an altar. The whole place had.....had an atmosphere
that I was acutely aware of the moment I stepped into the circle of trees. A
strange sense of peace and tranquillity, yet mingled with a sense of expectancy
- as if something of importance was just about to happen. I instantly did as
Relisar advised and began to search around the altar for the flowers, but
unfortunately, at first I paid no heed to the rest of his instructions and
looked amongst the grasses using my sense of sight, as if I was looking for a
coin I had dropped. I searched and searched, going over the same places many
times. I even extended my search up amongst the trees, but I found nothing.