Tesla Dart shrugged. “Magic not good. Belongs to those who put us here. Elves and such. Taken away by leaders and stored. No one wants it.”
Because they couldn’t make use of it. Because they lacked the ability to summon it. Because it was here by chance, and probably served as an unpleasant reminder of what had been done to them, so they stuck it away where it wouldn’t be seen. Where it wouldn’t offend by its mere presence. How would that have come about? What were things like in the beginning of the Forbidding, in its early days after everyone realized what had happened to them?
Anarchy. Chaos. Madness.
“Show us the Elfstones,” Oriantha ordered the Ulk Bog.
Tesla Dart hissed at her, then turned and beckoned them across the chamber. Redden and the shape-shifter followed, staying well clear of the chained worm. Dead or not, they had no interest in getting any closer to it than they had to. Casting about in the darkness of the huge cavern with sweeps of their torches, they kept close watch for other creatures.
It took them only a few minutes to get beyond the dead Graumth to an alcove set into the far side of the chamber—a deep niche in which all manner of strange implements were revealed. There were globes of metal and glass, staves intricately carved of wood and fashioned with silver tips, books of all sizes and shapes, iron boxes, flags emblazoned with emblems unrecognizable to the trio, weapons of all sizes and shapes, intricately shaped pieces of jewelry, and even a cauldron. Silk cloaks and scarves draped boxes and shelves on which many of the artifacts rested. A fine coating of rock dust covered everything. Motes hung in the air, swirling in an invisible breeze come from an unknown source.
Redden started forward, but Tesla Dart quickly put a hand out to stop him. “Traps,” she said.
Motioning for both the boy and Oriantha to stay where they were, she walked to one side of the wall and did something to the rock. After that, she seemed to count off steps toward the center before passing into the niche. Once there, she moved to the other side of the niche to release a series of trip wires. Finally, she retrieved a jar set close to the front of the opening, carried it over to a box set to one side, opened the jar, and set it inside the box.
Instantly dozens of tiny snakes emerged from the darkness, slithering quickly to reach the box and crawl inside.
The Ulk Bog spent a few moments more checking the darker places in the storage space, running hands over the surface of the walls and floor before beckoning them inside.
“Safe now,” she said. “Bad things put away. Traps disabled. You see?” She pointed to the box with the small snakes. “Poison. One bite?” She made a choking motion. “Dead fast.”
“You got all of them in that box?” Oriantha said. “You didn’t miss any?”
“All in box. Come here. Look.”
Tesla Dart took them over to a collection of boxes, cloths draped casually over a few of them. She went behind the pile, reached down beneath a heavy cloak, and pulled out a small metal box with an insignia stamped into it. The image was of crossed blades laid over a field of wheat with a bird that looked like a hawk circling overhead.
She handed it to Redden. “Stones inside. Pretty colors.” She cocked her head. “What do they do?”
Redden took the box from her, holding it out so that he could study it. “I don’t know. No one does.”
He experienced an emotional tightening in his chest. The missing Elfstones, lost for all these centuries, were now in his hands. He couldn’t quite believe it. Finding them now was so far removed from anything he had imagined possible that he was afraid to look inside for fear it was all a mistake.
He glanced at Oriantha and shook his head. “I don’t know if I can bear to open it.”
She smiled encouragingly. “You can. Go ahead.”
Still, he hesitated. This was what had brought the entire company into the Forbidding in the first place—what had led them to their destruction, what had swept most of them away and changed the lives of the rest forever. There had been no reason for weeks now to think that finding the Elfstones was any sort of possibility. In his own mind, the quest had been abandoned after the destruction of the Druid order.
Now here he was with the box that might contain the precious talismans in hand, and it was all he could do to make himself believe that it was real.
He knelt, balancing the metal box on one knee, and released the catch securing it. Slowly, he raised the lid and peered inside.
Soft black cloth layered the bottom of the box. Into it had been fashioned five molded depressions. Four contained sets of gemstones, each a different color—crimson, emerald, saffron, and white.