Magnus gathered his rocks in the center once more. “This is nothing compared to the wonders that I have seen in the deep. My grandfather once took me into the mountains of the Dithmar Range of Trent to a place only he knew. He told me that I needed to know where I came from. He took me deep into a crevasse to where a river went underground. We disappeared inside for weeks. My mother and father were furious when we finally returned. They didn’t want me to get ideas. They had already given up, but my grandfather—he knew.”
Magnus sparked a stone against another. “The things he showed me were amazing. Chambers hundreds of times the size of this one made of shimmering crystal so that a single glow stone could make it bright as day. Stone cathedrals with pillars and teeth, and waterfalls that dropped so far you could not hear the roar. Everything down there was so vast, so wide, so big—we felt immeasurably small. It is sometimes hard to believe in Drome, seeing what has become of his people, but in places like this, and certainly in halls like the ones my grandfather showed me, it’s like seeing the face of god firsthand.”
Arista spread her blanket next to Hadrian.
“What are you trying to do there, Magnus?” Hadrian asked.
“Provide a little light. There are lots of this kind of stone here. My grandfather showed me how to make them burn—smolder, really.”
“Let me help.” Arista made a modest motion and the trio of rocks ignited and burned as a perfect campfire.
The dwarf frowned. “No, no. Stop it. I can get it.”
Arista clapped and the fire vanished. “I just wanted to help.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not natural.”
“And making rocks glow by slamming them together is?” Hadrian asked.
“Yes—if you’re a dwarf.”
Magnus got his rocks glowing and the rest gathered around them to eat. They were each down to their last meals and hoped to emerge aboveground the following day, or the last leg of the trip would be a hungry one.
“Aha!” Myron said. He had laid his books out near the rocks, giddy that there was enough light to read by.
“Discover the proper pronunciation to another name?” Hadrian asked. “Is Degan’s real name Gwyant?”
“Hum? Oh, no, I found Mawyndul?—the one Antun Bulard and Esrahaddon spoke of.”
“You found him?”
“Yes, in this book. Ever since I read Mr. Bulard’s last scribbled words, I’ve been trying to find information on him. I reasoned that he must have read something shortly before he died. As these were the only books he had with him in the library, it stood to reason that Mawyndul? was mentioned somewhere in one of them. Wouldn’t you know it would be in the last book I read? Migration of Peoples by Princess Farilane. It is really a very biased accounting of how the Instarya clan took control of the elven empire. But it mentions Nyphron, the horn, and Mawyndul?.”
“What does it say?” Arista asked.
“It says the elves were constantly warring between the various tribes, and quite a bloody and violent people until they obtained the horn.”
“I mean, what does it say about Mawyndul??”
“Oh.” Myron looked embarrassed. “I don’t know. I haven’t read that yet. I just saw his name.”
“Then let’s be quiet and let the man read.”
Everyone remained silent, staring at the monk as he scanned the pages. Arista wondered if all the glaring distracted Myron, but as he rapidly turned page after page of dense script, she realized that the monk was unflappable with a book before him.
“Oh,” Myron finally said.
“ ‘Oh’ what?” Arista asked.
“I know why the horn didn’t make a sound when Degan blew it.”
“Well?” Hadrian asked.
The monk looked up. “You were right. Like you said in the tomb, it’s a horn of challenge.”
“And?”
“Degan’s already king. He can’t challenge himself, so it made no sound.”
“What does all this have to do with Mawyndul??” Arista asked.
Myron shrugged. “Still reading.”
The monk returned his attention to the book.
“We should be out tomorrow, right?” Arista asked Hadrian, who nodded. “How long have we been down here?”
Hadrian shrugged and looked to Royce.
The thief, having completed his survey of the perimeter, took a seat around the glow of the rocks with the rest of them and fished in his pack for his meal. “At least a week.”
“What will we find up there?” she asked herself as much as anyone else. “What if we’re too late?”
“So the Uli Vermar is the reign of a king,” Myron said. “Usually three thousand years—the average life span of an elf, apparently.”
“Really?” Mauvin asked, and glanced at Royce. “How old are you?”
“Not that old.”
“Remember the emperors in the tomb?” Arista said. “Mixing elven blood with human reduces the life span.”
“Yeah, but he’ll still outlive everyone here, except maybe Gaunt, right?”
“Why me?” Gaunt, who had been miserably picking at the remains of his meal, looked up.
“You’re an elf too.”
Gaunt grimaced. “I’m an elf?”
“You’re related to Novron, right?”
“But… I don’t want to be an elf.”