The Last Talisman
It took them thirteen days to reach Lake Jol. The canal they were following turned sharply upward and suddenly they could see light penetrating down through a distant opening.
“This is where things get tricky,” said Aires. She pulled a rope and a sort of pickaxe from her satchel. “I’ll go first and attach the rope. You two follow after. Try to adjust to the light a little at a time, otherwise it’ll blind you.” With that, she began scaling the rock wall, water rushing beneath her.
Sennar smiled as he watched her scale the steep tunnel, lithe as a polecat. She was the same Aires who once scurried up the masts and stays of her ship, no matter how rough the seas.
The sorcerer’s smile, however, faded quickly. In a half hour, Aires returned and gave them the signal to proceed. They would have to grab hold of the rope and hoist themselves up by the strength of their arms. The moment he heard her instructions, Sennar glanced warily at the tumultuous current beneath them.
For Nihal, the climb was no issue. But for Sennar, things weren’t so simple. His long tunic was constantly getting tangled up with the rope, and on several occasions, he nearly lost his grip and splashed into the water below. Between his rattled nerves and his aching muscles, the only thought he could manage was to wonder how the devil he’d ever gotten himself stuck in this wretched situation. Nevertheless, he managed to keep tugging himself upward, and in less then an hour, they reached the light.
When they emerged, Nihal and Sennar were struck with the impression that they’d somehow climbed up into hell. The first thing they noticed was the smoke billowing in thick black clouds reeking of sulfur. The smell was so pungent, the heat so stifling, to breathe seemed a nearly impossible task. Then the view cleared, and they glimpsed a series of bright red dots in the distance, set against the backdrop of a yellow sky. As their eyes adjusted to the light, they gradually realized that what they were looking at were the peaks of volcanoes, each spitting up cinders and ash and fuming with lengthening plumes of black smoke.
Not a sign of plant life in any direction, only bare rocks, their orange and yellow surfaces washed pale by the rain. From the ground rose a thick, vaporous gas, noxious in odor, but as distinct as clouds on a summer day.
“It’s not like this everywhere in the Land of Fire,” said Aires, leading the way. “This region happens to be one of the worst, along with the Dead Plains. To the north, though, the landscape improves. They say there was even a forest, many years ago, in the area around Assa. Me, though, I love the desolation here.” She let her gaze drift, taking in the entire view. “I don’t know why, but this deserted place has the same feeling as the sea.”
As they walked, they followed the tumultuous current of the very river they’d been traveling along underground. Through the opening where they’d exited, the river entered, plunging down into the belly of the earth. It served as an outlet for Lake Jol and was the only river in the Land of Fire whose waters flowed above ground. All the others were subterranean, emerging only near the major cities. Assa’s aqueduct was famed throughout the Lands, an immense construction surrounding the entire capital and channeling water to its inhabitants.
The river, in reality, was a mere brook, despite the intensity of its current. Its waters flowed through a maze of rocks that were every shade of red and yellow and drastically deformed and reshaped by erosion. At contact with the red-hot stone, the water evaporated, forming an impenetrable curtain of smoke, which obscured their view of the landscape at first.
They didn’t have to walk long before reaching the lake. It, too, was shrouded in a mass of smoke, as dense and white as fog on a winter morning. The heat was suffocating, and the air was permeated with an acrid odor. As they stared out at the lake vista, they heard the rumbling of the giant volcanoes, whose majestic bellowing seemed to lord over the entire region. Audible, too, was a steady trickling, which reminded Sennar of the dripping fountain in the garden where he and Ondine had said their good-byes, though in reality, it was only the lake’s slow simmering. Gigantic gas bubbles rose from the depths and burst languorously above the emerald surface, the deep green turning blue where the lake was deepest—where the volcano Aires had described rose upward.
It couldn’t have been more than a hundred feet high, with a small, round mouth spewing out a thick, oozing lava that trailed sluggishly down into the lake.
“As I already warned you, the waters are poisonous and loaded with salt,” said Aires, as they stood along the lake’s shore. She picked up a stone and threw it in. After an initial splash, the stone rose slowly upward and floated on the surface.
Sennar and Nihal watched the brief spectacle in astonishment.
“Is this the place?” the sorcerer finally asked.
Nihal pressed her eyelids shut for a moment, then lifted them. “Yes. This is it.”
“Good,” said Aires. “I’ve brought you where you needed to go. Whatever it is you have to do now is of no interest to me. And from what I can gather, it’s best if I don’t find out. I’m taking off. I’ll be waiting for you at the last cistern we passed through.”
As soon as she spoke her last word, Aires turned and headed back in the direction they’d come from, leaving Sennar and Nihal on shore with their doubts.
“Now what?” Sennar asked.
“The sanctuary is inside the volcano,” Nihal said matter-of-factly.
“Excellent,” Sennar muttered. “Now how do we get there?”
“With magic,” Nihal replied.
The sorcerer noticed something strange about her tone of voice, utterly lacking in expression. “Is everything okay?”
“Conjure a walkway,” said Nihal in the same, atonal voice.
Sennar glanced over at her for an instant and then did as told. A faint bridge stretched out over the water’s surface and the half-elf began walking along it. Sennar stepped up to follow her.
“You wait here,” Nihal stopped him.
“Why? I’ve been in almost every sanctuary with you.”
“This time you can’t follow me. He’s waiting for me in there, the one I’ve been consecrated to.”
“But if you …” Sennar uttered in protest, but Nihal had already vanished in the distance, enveloped by the heavy smoke above the lake.
The sorcerer sat down on the edge of the shore, waiting. This time, he knew, it was Shevrar calling her forward.
Nihal walked toward the sanctuary as if being pulled by a magnet, as if a strangely familiar voice were begging her onward and she was unable to resist. The talisman, hidden beneath her bodice, led her with unquestioning clarity toward the sacred ground. Nihal could almost feel her skin glowing with the stones’ radiance.
Awaiting her arrival on the island at the lake’s center was the most highly trusted servant of Shevrar, the dark and mysterious god to whom she’d been consecrated by her mother.
Nihal reached the volcano without delay. Hurriedly, she explored the surrounding island. But everywhere she looked, all she could see was lava and more lava—not a single passage leading into the temple. Then, narrowing her eyes, she noticed a small platform, a patch of solid ground amid the sea of lava. She rushed toward it.
Before her, shrouded in flames, was a door with the word Flaren written in fire above it. The keeping place of Flar. Shevrar’s sanctuary.
All of a sudden, Nihal’s confidence vanished. She could feel the fire pulling her forward and she trembled. What could it want from her? What did she know of Shevrar? When had she ever worshipped his name, which evoked images of violence and destruction? She felt no desire to cross the flaming threshold. And yet, she had no choice. She walked toward the doorway of fire and stepped in. Midway through, however, she came to a bewildered halt. The flames were licking her flesh, and yet they were not burning her. The sacred ground, she knew, had welcomed her arrival.
She entered a massive, circular room whose blood-red walls gave off a rippling,
luminous glare. Tongues of fire shot up to the ceiling like columns, and at the back of the room, hovering bright red above a pyre, stood Flar. Nihal imagined the heat was unbearable, and yet she felt nothing. In fact, she found herself perfectly at ease in the large room, as if it were the place where she’d long been destined to find. Sennar, she thought, would never have survived the heat, or even the flaming doorway. She’d been wise to leave him behind.
Nihal stepped deeper into the room, her footsteps echoing in the silence.
“Rassen, Sheireen tor Shevrar,” came a voice.
A man, shrouded in flames, knelt before her.
She’d heard that language spoken before, but had never been able to comprehend it. Now, however, she understood the guardian’s greeting, and replied, “Rassen tor sel, Flaren terphen,” marveled by the sound of the strange words that had just come from her own mouth.
The guardian lifted his eyes to her and smiled. A young, handsome boy. His eyes glowed red like coals and even his hair was made of flames. He spoke again, this time in the language of the Overworld: “The Consecrated One has come at last.”
27
Flaren
or On Destiny
“You’re a servant of Shevrar’s, aren’t you?” Nihal asked.
“I, like you, am consecrated to him, but in a very different way. While you were born to the world outside, I am a being created by Shevrar to guard this sanctuary,” the young boy replied.
The feelings of awe and enchantment she’d felt upon stepping into the room suddenly fled. Instinctually, she felt the need to distance herself from the being standing before her.
“I come only for the stone, not as his Consecrated One.”
“But it is precisely because you are the Consecrated One, Sheireen, that you’ve come for the stone in the first place,” the boy replied, flashing her another smile.
Nihal’s brow furrowed with bewilderment.
“When your mother, plagued with despair, prayed to my god for your salvation, Shevrar ordained you the Chosen One, as had been prophesied.”
“But I know nothing about Shevrar,” Nihal objected. “Reis spoke to me of him; she told me he was the god of War. All I know is that it’s because of him that I’ve been driven to fight.”
The young boy shook his head. “My god is not only the god of War. Reis misinformed you. In the blindness of her hate, she failed to see anything but destruction in my creator. But Shevrar is not all fire and war. Ael, too, spoke to you of his nature, only in different words. Don’t you remember? He told you my god was both beginning and end, both death and life. That is the essence of who you are, and in that essence lies the meaning of your mission.”
“So that’s the reason I was consecrated, to carry out this mission? I thought it was to make me a warrior. …”
“You, like so many others, see only hate, and this is the very downfall of your world. In truth, all suffering masks a joy, all beginnings harbor an end. When, years ago, the Tyrant came to power, one of the temple’s sages made a prophecy, a vision that plagued the Tyrant like a curse. He was the last of Shevrar’s high priests, for already the half-elves had begun to forget their gods, the gods of their fathers, the elves. In his prophecy, the sage declared that the Tyrant would never achieve his desired end, for his goal was offensive to the gods and foreign to Shevrar’s nature. And so a Consecrated One, a half-elf, was ordained, in order to oppose his disrespectful will. You, Sheireen, are the Consecrated One.” The guardian was silent.
“But what is it, this end the Tyrant seeks?” Nihal asked after a few moments.
Flar shook his head. “Now is not the time for you to find out. Know only that he rebelled against the gods, against Shevrar above all, and that he lost sight of the world’s eternal flux.”
Nihal was at a loss for words. “What am I supposed to do, then? Of all the half-elves, why did Shevrar save me alone?”
“So that one day you would come to this sanctuary, take Flar from my hands, and use it to demolish the Tyrant.”
“But why me?” Nihal insisted, unsatisfied by his response. She could feel the shadow of her destiny creep over her, the shadow of death and revenge she’d sought so long to escape.
“Because your mother prayed on your behalf.”
“And so that’s it, that’s what my whole life comes down to? Is this the answer I’ve been looking for?”
The young boy stood and stared into her eyes. His was the face of infinite wisdom and superiority. “With the blood of your mother and father, the gods—and Shevrar foremost among them—sought to lend hope to this world of despair. It is for such a purpose that you were saved. In your mission lies the hope of a new era, the hope of peace.”
“So in the end it’s exactly as Reis told me in her hut, almost a year ago. I’m just the weapon those forgotten gods are using to take vengeance on the Tyrant,” Nihal muttered, her eyes to the ground, her heart filled with bitterness.
“It’s only revenge if you want it to be. The gods cannot act with a human heart, and the human will is greater than destiny itself. You, Sheireen, are the only one who can save this world from darkness, but the final choice is yours. When you’re standing face-to-face with the Tyrant, no one will be able to tell you what to do. Your destiny is not a cage, but a path you’ve been set upon.”
“But the fact that I am the sole remaining survivor, how can I have any choice?” Nihal argued.
Flar smiled. “Thoolan understood you well—you do not feel at one with your mission, you lack the desire to do what you’re doing.”
“I have to do it; you even said so yourself. I’m Sheireen, the Consecrated One, ordained for this sole purpose.”
“What you say is true, in part. But it was you who stood up in Council, was it not? You who offered to carry this burden,” the boy reminded her, his lips still curled in a smile. “The meaning of your existence is not limited only to your destiny, Sheireen. And my god wishes for you to find joy, too. Don’t ever believe otherwise. Yes, your actions now are in line with your destiny as the Consecrated One, but neither I nor my god can tell you precisely what end you seek to bring about with those actions. The answer lies within you and in all that surrounds you, and finding that answer is the same as discovering your own path.”
Nihal’s spirits sank. So, her wandering had not yet come to an end. Her search would continue. Could it be that even Flar’s explanation wasn’t the answer? After all, he’d just told her that her journey had been preordained, that years ago it was already known she’d seek out the stones and use them to defeat the Tyrant. Wasn’t that the final goal? And yet she’d known it all along, she felt it in her heart, and so this could not be what she was seeking.
“Think carefully,” said Flar. “That which others have chosen for you cannot define your purpose. Your mission was determined long before you were born, long before your mother and father saw the light of this earth. The true purpose of your life cannot lie in this journey.”
Nihal let out a sigh. “Was it also prophesied that I’ll defeat the Tyrant?” she asked.
Upon hearing this question, the guardian laughed, revealing the full splendor of his beauty. “Sheireen, the hearts and minds of those who walk these lands are too profound for even my god to know them in all their complexity. I don’t know what will happen on the day you rise up before the Tyrant. I know one thing.” He was silent for a moment, turning toward the pyre to summon Flar. The stone hovered toward him and came to a rest above his palm, glowing sanguine red.
“Long ago, you were fated to receive this stone. Others who were consecrated before you have held it in their hands. Now it is yours, along with the lives of all those that remain on this earth.”
But his words gave no comfort to Nihal. Their full meaning eluded her.
“Take it,” he urged.
Nihal reached out and grabbed the stone. It was blood red, a
thousand flames flickering within it—she seemed to be clutching the essence of fire itself. She pulled the medallion from her bodice. It, too, glowed radiantly.
As she was about to perform the sacred rite, Flar knelt before her. “Until we meet again, on the day of the final battle,” he said.
Nihal recited the ritual words and, just as had happened in the other sanctuaries, it was as if the entire structure were sucked up into the talisman. All around her darkness fell. The heat was suddenly unbearable, the air thick with poisonous vapors. Nihal realized she wouldn’t be able to withstand the suffocating atmosphere much longer and hastened away from the island.
Sennar’s walkway was still there, though its light shone more faintly than before. Nihal crossed it rapidly. Just as she stepped down onto the shore, lava flooded the doors of Flaren, swallowing the entrance and its fiery inscription.
“How did it go?” Sennar leaped to his feet, relieved, as soon as he saw Nihal’s figure emerging from the vaporous lake. He was worn, drained from sustaining such a long spell.
Nihal stopped in front of him and pulled out the talisman. It shone brightly in the gray air, the stones as if animated by an inner life.
Sennar let out a heavy sigh. “Who was in there?”
“A servant of Shevrar,” she replied.
As they made their way back to the meeting place, she recounted all that the guardian had told her, including the prophecy.
At last, they reached Aires, who showed no interest in hearing what had happened. “Everything taken care of?” was all she asked, and Nihal nodded. Then she rose to her feet and they were off traveling again.
By the time they descended back into the aqueduct, evening was falling on the Land of Fire—a heavy darkness, spotted with the spewing fire of a thousand volcanoes.
Their voyage toward the land’s border proved more complicated. Aires was less familiar with the region, and on several occasions, they found themselves in a bind. At one point, they nearly lost their way completely. For an entire day, they wandered in circles, Aires far off in front of them, her head snapping left and right as she tried to regain her bearings. Only when they chanced upon a rebel faction in one of the cisterns were they finally saved. After almost three weeks of travel, they’d finally found a place to rest.