Suddenly the hair on his neck stood on end. A sensation of utter cold wafted over his spirit. Freezing and smothering, it was familiar, too familiar. Rather than a flowing, living river, he smelled the stagnant stench of the Dark Water.
“Bravely marching to Death’s door,” he whispered, then cursed violently, his voice echoing and reechoing in the dark. “What have we done?”
His fey eyes struggled to see in the dark, but he could just discern Imraldera’s form a few steps ahead as she felt her way along the cavern wall. “Wait!” Eanrin cried, leaping forward and grabbing her arm. He felt her whole body convulse with terror, and she whirled about and gripped his arms as though holding on to life itself. He peered into her face and realized that her mortal eyes could see nothing in this place. She was walking blind.
“We must go back,” he told her.
She shook her head.
“We can’t go on this way. I know this Path!” he insisted. “I’ve walked it before, though not in this place. This is the Path of Death!”
Her grip tightened for a moment, then relaxed, as though she forced her muscles to obey. She stepped out of Eanrin’s grasp and turned back to feeling her way, her steps slow but firm.
“Imraldera!” Eanrin cried, hastening to keep up with her. “Don’t you understand? You go to your own destruction! That’s what it means to walk this Path. You will die!” A piece of his mind whispered, I will die too.
But in that moment, he did not care.
This is what you have always feared, he realized. This is the final weakness.
He shook off the thought and reached for Imraldera again. She was beyond his grasp and moving swiftly. Two steps more, and Eanrin gasped in surprise. For they no longer walked Death’s Path. Only a few paces before, without twists or turns, they had been on that inevitable road to the Dark Water. Now the darkness of oppression gave way to the natural darkness of underground, and the stench of demise was replaced with the smells of deep places, cold and dank but not fetid.
They were once more under the mountain. And they followed the Path of the Lumil Eliasul.
It was strange to walk Faerie Paths in the mortal world. In the Between or the Far World, it was as natural as breathing to be carried over those far stretches of land in a stride. In the mortal world, it was a nauseating sensation, and Eanrin often had to stop and let his head clear of dizziness.
In those times, Imraldera waited for him. She, for all her mortality, seemed less affected. Perhaps because it was her land. Perhaps mortals were bound to their demesnes, much like Faerie lords and ladies. Imraldera was, Eanrin still insisted, a princess, and she would feel that bond as only those of royal blood would.
At last they left the caverns below the mountains and emerged, blinking and gasping, into daylight. They were both streaked with dirt and damp, but after their many adventures, this scarcely made a difference. Imraldera, who had been blind as they traveled underground, was obliged to stand for some moments, letting her eyes adjust. This gave Eanrin time to take in the world around him.
He was surprised by the freshness in the air, having expected yet again to be overwhelmed by mortal stinks. But it was as clear and heady to him as the breezes of Rudiobus itself, if warmer. He liked the smell of the forests growing here, the low shrubs and rich mosses. This was a good land.
But as they began to climb the mountains, still following the Path of the Lumil Eliasul, Eanrin grew uneasy. Something was wrong; something was false. Bald Mountain loomed above them, and Eanrin wrinkled his nose as the faint remnants of poison reached him. The Flame at Night had fallen here, he realized. This was the Near World mountain she smote after her plunge from the heavens. He saw the barren slopes where no living thing would thrive again; he saw the scorch marks upon the earth. Something much worse was amiss here, if he could but sniff it out.
Imraldera led him along the Path, up the dead mountain. They climbed into the freezing reaches near its summit, but the cold could not touch them on the Faerie Path. From that height, Eanrin beheld the Hidden Land for the first time: the green fields, the deep gorges wherein the rivers flowed, stretching to the far horizon and beyond sight.
“Your kingdom,” he said to Imraldera. But she gave him a puzzled look and shook her head. It did not matter. She was a princess, say what she would.
They picked their way down the far slopes of Bald Mountain. Imraldera’s steps became more hesitant, and she stumbled dangerously once or twice. This was not a terrain on which to lose one’s footing. Eanrin doubted she could fall so long as they pursued this Path, but he did not like to take the chance. He took hold of her arm, and she allowed him to assist her in the more difficult descents.
Her body shuddered in his grasp, and her dark face went ashen.
Eanrin stopped as though he had hit a wall. The scents of lies and deceits overwhelmed him, and he swayed where he stood.