Not a minute passed since Heli gave his last breath, when Hëna appeared running through the gate, her face covered in tears. She threw herself at her brother’s dead body and hid her head in his chest; the sound of her uncontrollable sobs echoing through the cave. Time stopped all around them, and everything else went dead quiet. The only sound that could be heard was Hëna’s inconsolable wailing over her brother’s dead body.
She sat like that for what felt like an eternity, and none of the boys dared approach her. They just stepped back, leaving the two of them alone. Daniel buried his head in his hands, as if trying to keep the images away. Not far behind him, Nemo sat down on the cold ground, weeping like a child, while next to him, Nathaniel stood with a shocked expression on his face, not even trying to fight his tears.
Daniel felt like he could shut down right then and there. He wanted to scream and shout so badly, but he couldn’t. He’d grown so fond of Heli during this journey and had come to think of him as a brother and a friend. But now, he was no more, and Daniel didn’t know how to process all of it. It just felt so unreal, so impossible. He refused to believe that this was happening, that Heli was really gone.
They lost track of how long they sat like that, neither of them daring to say or do something. After enough time passed, Hëna got up, wiping her face with the back of her hands.
Daniel somehow found the courage to step in front of her, head down.
‘I’m so sorry, Hëna. We had no idea what was waiting for us here.’
‘This isn’t your fault, Daniel; he knew what he was doing.’ Her words came out strained and weak, and her tears had not abated one bit. Her eyes did not meet his, however. ‘We have to go inside; I have a feeling something worse is about to happen.’
‘We still haven’t been inside,’ Nathaniel informed her in a soft compassionate voice, ‘We don’t know what else may be waiting for us in there.’
‘We’ll have to take our chances,’ she said, lifting her brother’s sword from the ground and heading towards the main doors. Daniel followed her, unsheathing his own sword, while Nathaniel drew out his fighting knives. Halfway to the doors, Daniel turned back and handed Nemo his bow.
‘Stay with Heli please, Nemo.’
Nemo accepted the weapon without objection and stayed behind.
Once at the big doors, Hëna pushed them open and walked inside, sword first. The room appeared to be big, but it was quite dark, so she couldn’t tell just how much.
‘I need a torch,’ she called behind her, but Daniel was already preparing one.
She had barely taken one step inside, when two men came at her, attacking simultaneously. Having no time to stop and think, she ducked as the first one swung a mace at her, and slashed the second one in half. He fell down on the floor and didn’t move. Kneeling as she was next to his lifeless body, Hëna pointed her sword behind her as if she was sheathing it. The first man had now turned and was going for another strike, but as he approached her, he did not see her sword and ran full speed into it. The sharp metal went deep inside his guts and stopped the man in the middle of his attack. Hëna removed her sword, causing the man to wince from pain. As she got back up on her feet, the man dropped his mace and fell on the floor on top of his friend. It all happened in mere seconds.
Holding her sword up and checking her surroundings for any other threats, Hëna finally allowed herself to breathe. Daniel and Nathaniel walked in to find her standing on top of the dead men, with an empty look on her face.
Under the light of the torch that Daniel was holding, they could finally make out clearly the two attackers, but what they saw made no sense. The men lying before them were not really men; they looked more like something between a man and a wolf. Their whole body was covered in dark grey fur, their front legs had been transformed into human arms, that ended into hands with four fingers, and they walked on their back legs that looked barely human. Their heads had not changed much and they still looked pretty much like wolfs, except for the fact that they stood, moved and fought like men. It was clear that whoever had done this, was only interested in using these creatures as fighting machines.
‘Great, more monsters,’ Hëna said with disgust.
‘What are they?’ Nathaniel asked shocked. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before.’
‘Yeah, well, stick with us,’ Hëna said in a dry colorless tone, grabbing the torch from Daniel and moving further in to explore the room.
‘This is definitely Winter’s work,’ Daniel said, observing the fallen wolfmen. ‘The ice, the dragon, these creatures; he must have known about this place, that’s why he’s been trying to keep us from getting here.’
‘Well, if he’s been using this castle for his purposes, then what about the Great Lord? Where is he?’
‘I don’t know,’ Daniel answered, despair and exhaustion finally catching up to him.
The room grew bigger and brighter as Hëna began to light torch after torch going forth. Soon there was enough light for them to see that they were standing in a hall big enough to host hundreds of people inside. From the door, a red carpet was laid, with tall marble pillars rising on either side, upon which were placed large golden bowls filled with burning oil. The red carpet stopped in the middle of the hall, where a single throne was raised on a platform above the ground. Even under the weak light of a few torches, they could see the throne was also made of gold. A lot of craft and care had gone into it. The rest of the hall had little in the way of ornaments or decorations. It looked like it had never actually been used and dust covered everything, except for the throne. Someone had actually sat there just recently.
‘Daniel, can you bring Heli inside, please?’ Hëna asked, her voice weak and trembling. ‘I’m gonna check the adjoining rooms quickly to make sure there’s no one else in here.’
Daniel simply nodded and headed outside. Nathaniel decided to go after Hëna, in case she needed help.
Not far from the castle, a dozen wingmen that had chanced upon their trail and followed it up to the field, were now climbing down the narrow path and heading towards the tunnel that led to the cave. They found themselves outside the castle just as Daniel and Nemo entered the hall with Lightning carrying Heli’s body.
‘Stop right there,’ the leader of the group shouted, drawing his crossbow and prompting his men to do the same.
Caught by surprise, Daniel and Nemo froze in place for a moment, not knowing what to do. The wingmen began advancing faster towards them, but before they even got to the middle of the courtyard, first the ones that were in the back and then the rest of the troop began to scream.
In the faint blue light that illuminated the courtyard, Daniel could make out some dark silhouettes out of the whole mess, and it was with horror that he realized what was happening.
‘Nemo, we need to close the doors,’ he screamed. ‘Quickly.’
They moved hurriedly to shut the heavy doors, just as the wingmen’s bodies began to slowly and painfully disintegrate into thin air before their very eyes. Lightning started to neigh fearfully and move nervously behind them.
Hearing their shouts, Hëna and Nathaniel ran back into the room, weapons ready.
‘What’s going on?’ Hëna asked.
‘We need your help,’ Daniel answered, alarmed. ‘The shadows are outside. They will try to get in here when they’re done with the wingmen.’
‘What wingmen?’ It was Nathaniel who asked this time.
‘A group from Dard'h; I guess they found our trail and followed us here. The shadows got to them just before they could come in here. We need you, Hëna; you’re the only one who can keep them off.’
‘No, I’m not,’ Hëna replied, a sad tone in her voice. ‘I have no more light in me; it’s all gone. It left me as soon as Heli died. I’m sorry, Daniel; I cannot help this time.’
‘Then what do we do?’ asked Nemo, his voice trembling with fear. ‘Light is the only thing that can keep them away.’
Daniel suddenly grabbed the log back
from Hëna’s hand and began lighting every torch in the room and setting fire to all the oil bowls on top of the pillars. The others understood what he was doing and each grabbed a torch to help. Very soon, the hall was lit so bright, that they needed a moment to let their eyes adjust.
They had just lit up the last torch in the big hall, when the shadows began pounding on the doors from outside. They tried to squeeze in through the cracks and from under the doors, but the room was too bright for them to survive, so they drew back. Still they kept on pounding and pounding relentlessly on the doors.
Inside, the guys breathed a momentary sigh of relief. They were safe for now, but how long was it going to last? And even if they had enough oil and torches to keep the light going for a very long time, how long could they stay in there? And what would become of their mission? Not that they knew where to go from here; they had indeed found the castle, but there was no sign of the Great Lord anywhere. Heli was dead, and unless a miracle happened, they would soon suffer the same fate.
Under the sound of the pounding doors, everyone fell quiet and instinctively drew back to the middle of the hall, next to the throne. Daniel was the first one to say out loud what they were all thinking.
‘We don’t have much time; this light is not going to last forever.’
‘Where do they come from?’ Nathaniel asked of the shadows. He had not heard of them before.
‘From the Shadow Forest; they’ve been stuck in there since the beginning of time.’
‘But what are they?’
‘It’s a long story,’ Daniel answered again, ‘and I don’t think we have enough time to tell it. We need to think of a way out of this and quickly.’
‘Maybe there’s a secret passage somewhere in the castle,’ Nemo suggested, ‘a back door out of here.’
‘That’s a good idea Nemo; we should start checking the entire castle right away.’ Daniel felt a hint of hope revive his strength.
That hope died very soon, however, when Hëna spoke from the steps in front of the throne, where she was sitting down.
‘That won’t help.’ She sounded as if she had given up.
‘Why not?’
‘Because they are everywhere. Heli’s light was the only thing that was keeping them away, and now that he’s gone, there’s no stopping them. It’s over, for all of us.’
‘You mean; they’re going to kill everyone out there? Every single person?’
‘If they haven’t already; it’s only a matter of time.’
‘Even the mermaids?’ Nemo asked in a childlike voice. Hëna appeared to be thinking about it.
‘They might survive; somehow I don’t think the shadows can swim. Of course, they’ll never be able to come ashore again.’
Everyone fell silent again, pondering the consequences of this new terror. They could not believe life in Endërland was about to end and they were locked up in here, unable to do anything about it.
‘There must be something we can do,’ Nathaniel said again. ‘We can’t just sit here and wait for everything to end.’
‘If you have any ideas, I’m listening,’ Hëna replied absentmindedly, as if she didn’t really expect any.
Daniel appeared to be thinking of something.
‘What happens to the sun and moon now that …?’
He found that he could not finish that sentence. Hëna gave him an empty look. He had apparently forgotten that only the Great Lord could appoint their replacement. Her expression darkened again, as she reminded him.
‘Someone else is supposed to take our place, but it’s the Great Lord that appoints them, and as you know, he keeps on playing hide and seek with us.’
‘Right,’ Daniel surrendered. ‘Then I guess we really are doomed. We might as well open the doors and welcome them inside, for they will get in eventually.’
No one replied to him. They were all sitting down by now, giving in to the fact that these were their last moments alive. Daniel looked at them and then at the empty throne on his right.
‘And we thought we found him. This is nothing but an empty castle with an empty chair. All that we went through, all the travelling, the running, the fighting, Heli; it was all for nothing.’
Lost in his despair, Daniel approached the throne and just slumped on it.
What happened next, no one could have foreseen. At the first contact with his body, the throne lit up entirely, as if millions of tiny lamps inside it came on all at once. The bracelet on his wrist fell open on the floor, just as a bright wave of golden light emanated from the throne and spread evenly all around them, adding to the brightness of the hall.
Before their very eyes, Heli’s body, which was still resting on Lightning, began to levitate and shine increasingly bright, its light becoming one with that coming from the Golden Throne. When it reached the doors, the light went through them and outside the castle, causing a series of multiple shrieks for a brief moment, followed by absolute silence. The pounding on the doors stopped at once and they could hear nothing else.
Having closed their eyes to shield them from the strong burst of light, Daniel, Hëna, Nathaniel and Nemo now opened them, to find that Heli’s body had disappeared.
‘Where did Heli go? What did you do, Dan?’ Nemo was the first to ask.
Daniel got up from the throne, confused.
‘Nothing. I just…, sat here,’ he answered, looking inquiringly at Hëna. Her expression was unreadable and he couldn’t tell what she was feeling. ‘I don’t know what happened.’
Hëna got up slowly and went to Lightning, stroking him gently and resting her head against his long neck. She said nothing, nor looked at anyone, but the fresh wave of tears down her face told them all they needed to know.
Another moment of silence went by, when all Daniel wanted to do was go to her, take her in his arms and hold her tight until all her tears were exhausted. But he held back.
Nathaniel was the next one to speak again, still completely mystified by what had just happened.
‘Where did the light come from?’
Daniel looked away from Hëna, glad for the distraction.
‘From here; from the throne,’ he answered again, though he wasn’t too sure himself.
‘You must have done something.’
‘I’m telling you; I just sat down.’ He then looked behind them at the doors. ‘Do you think they’ve gone?’
Nemo walked over to the doors and put his ear against them, listening for anything outside. He could hear no sounds whatsoever. Without saying anything, he unlocked the door and opened it slowly, while they approached behind him. To their relief, nothing rushed in to hurt them and they saw no shadows. But what they did see left them speechless.
The cave was shining with the same golden light that had emanated from the throne inside the castle, and the light did not seem to stop there. They walked out of the gate, back through the tunnel and outside the cave. That’s when they saw that the golden light had spread all over Endërland, conquering the darkness and wrapping everything in twilight colors.
Neither of them could believe their eyes.
‘I guess it’s not over yet,’ Nathaniel said, staring in awe at the indescribable sight before them.
‘I guess not,’ Hëna agreed, gazing thoughtfully at Daniel.
Back inside the castle, the Golden Throne kept shining bright.
‘Now what?’ Nemo asked the question that was in everyone’s mind. ‘We still have to find the Great Lord, don’t we?’
‘I think we already have,’ Hëna answered, looking at Daniel.
Revelations & Resolutions