Besides being stupid, they’re greedy. So they come up here to earn some gold looking for the Prince and they’re told, “Don’t go in the building.” Now, each one of these clever lads thinks the moredhel are lying, because he knows everyone else is as stupid and greedy as he is. One of these clever lads goes up there looking around, and gets a dart in the gullet for his efforts.
“After I found the sphere on the pedestal, I doubled back and really looked around. That place was built by the moredhel, recently. It’s about as ancient as I am. It’s mostly a wood building, with stone facing. I’ve been in old buildings. This isn’t one. I don’t know how they did it. Maybe with magic, or just a whole lot of slave labor, but it’s no more than a few months old.”
“But Galain said this was a Valheru place,” said Arutha.
Martin said, “I think him right, but I think Jimmy right as well. Remember what you told me of Tomas’s rescue from the Valheru underground hall by Dolgan, just before the war?” Arutha said he did. “That place sounds much like this.”
“Light a torch,” said Arutha. Roald did so, and they moved away from the crevice.
Laurie said, “Has anyone noticed that for a cave the ground is fairly flat?”
“And the walls’re pretty regular,” added Roald.
Baru looked about. “In our haste we never examined this place closely. It is not natural. The boy is right. The building is a trap.”
Martin said, “This cave system has had two thousand years or more to wear away. With that fissure above us, rain comes through here every winter, as well as seepage from the lake above. It has worn away most of what was carved upon the walls.” He ran his hand over what seemed at first glance to be swirls in the stone. “But not all.” He indicated some design on the walls, rendered abstract by years of erosion.
Baru said, “And so we dream ancient dreams of hopelessness.”
Jimmy said, “There are some tunnels we haven’t explored yet. Let’s have a look.”
Arutha looked at his companions. “Very well. You take the lead, Jimmy. Let’s backtrack to that cave with all the tunnels, then you pick a likely one and we’ll see where it leads.”
In the third tunnel they found the stairway leading down. Following it, they came to a large hallway, ancient from the look of the sediment upon the floor. Regarding it, Baru said, “No foot has trod this hall in ages.”
Tapping the surface of the floor with his boot, Martin agreed. “This is years of buildup.”
Jimmy led them along, under giant vaulted arches from which hung dust-laden torch holders, long rusted to near-uselessness. At the far end of the hall they discovered a chamber. Roald inspected the giant iron hinges, now grotesquely twisted lumps of rust, barely recognizable, where once huge doors had hung. “Whatever wanted through the door that was here didn’t seem willing to wait.”
Passing through the portal, Jimmy halted. “Look at this.”
They faced what seemed a large hall, with faint echoes of ancient grandeur. Tapestries, now little more than shredded rags with no hint of color, hung along the walls. Their torches cast flickering shadows upon the walls, giving the impression that ancient memories were awakening after eons of sleep. What might have once been any number of recognizable things were now scattered piles of debris tossed about the hall. Splinters of wood, a twisted piece of iron, a single gold shard, all hinted at what might have once been, without revealing lost truths. The only intact object in the room was a stone throne atop a raised dais halfway along the right-hand wall. Martin approached and gently touched the centuries-old stone. “Once a Valheru sat here. This was his seat of power.” As if remembering a dream, all in the hall were visited with a sense of how alien this place was. Millennia gone, the power of the Dragon Lord was still a faint presence. There was no mistaking it now: here they stood in the heart of an ancient race’s legacy. This was a source of the moredhel dreams, one of the places of power along the Dark Path.
Roald said, “There’s not much left. What caused this? Looters? The Dark Brotherhood?”
Martin looked about, as if seeing ages of history in the dust upon the walls. “I don’t think so. From what I know of ancient lore, this may have endured from the time of the Chaos Wars.” He indicated the utter destruction. “They fought on the backs of dragons. They challenged the gods, or so legends say. Little that witnessed that struggle survived. We will probably never know the truth.”
Jimmy had been scampering about the chamber, poking here and there. At last he returned and said, “Nothing growing here.”
“Then where is the Silverthorn?” Arutha asked bitterly. “We have looked everywhere.”
Everyone was silent for a long minute. Finally Jimmy said, “Not everywhere. We’ve looked around the lake, and”—he waved his hand around the hall—”under the lake. But we haven’t looked in the lake.”
“In the lake?” said Martin.
Jimmy said, “Calin and Galain said it grew very close to the edge of the water.” So, had anyone thought to ask the elves if there have been heavy rains this year?”
Martin’s eyes widened. “The water level’s risen!”
“Anyone want to go swimming?” asked Jimmy.