Chapter 29

29.
         They had emerged from what seemed to be a hole placed in a endlessly high mountain range. The slope slanted gently downward from where they were standing but Tristian wasn't paying any attention to it. His eyes stared only straight ahead, into something that bordered on near impossible.
         The light had blinded him at first, having been stuck in the darkness with only dim illuminations to guide him. This wasn't dim at all, it was bright, almost sunlight but having a hazy shimmering quality that sunlight didn't have. Like the light was a tangible thing. But the light wasn't the only special thing here. It was the land, the land that stretched out before him. From high up here he could see rolling hills, dense forests, the distant icepeaks of mountains, greens and browns and blues and whites all blending together. From far away he could see living things moving, too distant to resemble anything distinct but upon first glance they appeared more fantastic than anything he could have imagined.
         It was like they had traveled through the planet and come out the other side. Except his mind still told him that he was enclosed, that all around him was nothing but solid rock and that perhaps many miles above him lay the real land, the land that he had come to know. Here was something different.
         Behind him he could hear Johan and Michelle draw closer to where he was standing. They both came to stand on either side of him, brushing past the now silent elves, Michelle even forgetting her distaste of them from before as they stared openmouthed at the panorama that spread out before their eyes.
         "It's impossible," Johan whispered, shaking his head as if preparing to awaken from a very dark dream. "We must be deep underground, this can't possibly exist. It has to be some sort of illusion."
         "Only illusion is what your eyes refuse to see," one of the elves said, hugging the rocks and slipping past Johan to stand near Tristian.
         "I see it, but . . ." Michelle said, her voice hushed. "I've never heard of anything like this."
         "Long ago, we hid ourselves and this place," the elf said, fixing its eyes on Tristian. "Hid the deep, sealed it away, so that even those who knew could not get in. Come." And then nimbly it made its way down the slope, seeming to defy gravity as it danced down on thin limbs and sprightly body. Dirt that the elf kicked up on its descent ghosted the air, and when it had reached the bottom it stared up at them, not saying a word. Just waiting.
         "It wants to show us something," Michelle said, her eyes narrowing as she stared down at the elf.
         "Can we trust it, though?" Johan asked, glancing over at Tristian. Tristian wasn't sure at one point he had become the leader but everyone seemed to be directing their questions to him.
         "Well, they haven't done anything but talk to us and they could have trapped us several times before this," Tristian noted cautiously. "I say we go with him but be on our guard in case he decides to try something."
         "Why don't we just ask the other . . . hey!" Michelle began to say as she turned around but she saw nothing but empty air behind her. "They all vanished," she said, sounding confused.
         "They seem to be able to move quite silently," Tristian told her. "Seems that they don't need to talk to us, only our new friend down there."
         "He's still there," Johan said, peering down. "Just staring back up at us." He turned to the others. "But we really should make a decision before he runs out of patience and just leaves us here." The pressing time reminded all of them of why they had come here. To find some sort of hope, to find something that might defeat the Dark Riders and send them back, never to come again. What that might be, they had no idea but they were willing to exhaust every avenue of possibility if there was a chance. But it felt like there was so little time. How many villages were being slaughtered as they stood there, how much land had the Dark Riders taken?
         "We're going," Tristian said firmly, not knowing what else to do. All this time he had been relying on the Agents, following their lead, hoping that they knew what they were doing at each critical juncture and not just pretending that they did. Now, on his own, he needed something solid to fall back on, something to grasp at. And all the while he was aware of the stakes. An entire world might die if he failed here, if he wasted too much time following false leads. But this just felt right, something about it seemed to be, if not the cure for their troubles, perhaps on the right road to it.
         As he spoke he headed down the hill, cautiously watching his footing, seeing that the elf had made it seem much easier than it had looked. Even now, as he got closer it headed even further down, and its body seemed to be made of rubber, the bones not bending in the conventional places. Doing his best, biting his lip in concentration and praying that he didn't get a broken ankle out of this, he followed.
         Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of azure and turned his head as best he could to see Michelle and Johan wrapped in blue light, rising into the air and starting to float down. Michelle's light seemed brighter than usual but that might have been the weird lighting in the sky. Even the sky didn't look right, Tristian noticed suddenly, finally getting a chance to look up and out. The sky was more of a dome than usual, and instead of growing brighter as you went up, it seemed to get darker. Where the top of the dome might be was total darkness. There wasn't any sun either, the light seemed to come from everyhwere. Magic, he reminded himself. It didn't have to make sense. You just had to accept it, he guessed.
         Even with magical help, Michelle and Johan reached the elf about the same time Tristian had, touching down in a brief spray of dirt. The soil was still loose around here, and Tristian hoped that he didn't have to do any running any time soon. Not unless the ground got a little harder.
         The elf regarded Tristian as if seeing him for the first time, blinking the pale eyes and saying, "You have questions," as if the statement were mere fact. As if he already knew what the questions were.
         Thing was, Tristian did have questions. "Yeah, I guess I do have some things to ask you," he said, glancing over at his two friends. They were busy taking in the sights, but he could tell that Michelle was still paying close attention. For someone interested in knowledge this entire place afforded her enough of an opportunity to see things that legends only hinted at. It was perhaps enough to even make her briefly forget that there was a war going on.
         "What is this place?" he asked, figuring that was the easiest thing to start with. The elf had said they were underground, but he couldn't believe it. His mind told him that they had come downhill through miles of rock, and that they must surely be deep in the planet but his senses refused to believe that.
         "Underneath, where most cannot reach," the elf said simply. "This place has no name, for nobody has seen fit to give it one, and the land itself cares not what it is called."
         "But why was it sealed away? Why are you in hiding?"
         "Hiding?" the elf just glanced at him with a strange expression. Tristian didn't even know why he kept calling it an elf, other than a vague physical resemblance to the elves of legend, it didn't have any of the characteristics that he had come to associate with such creatures. Perhaps that was because such creatures didn't exist where he had come from and so people had made them up. Maybe those legends were based on creatures like this, some that had crossed over to his world somehow and over the centuries the descriptions had become more and more ornate and varied. He'd never know and it really didn't matter.
         "We are not hiding," the elf said firmly, though there was no anger in its voice. It had started to walk now, down into a deep meadow that met the edge of the cave. The three of them followed, the grass bending silently under their feet. "The land was sealed away because there was a need for such a thing."
         The meadow was thinning now, the previously lush grass being relegated to patches of green. A forest loomed ahead, and Tristian got a feeling from it even older than the forest that had held the fairies. The trees were huge, and weighted with age. The elf led them into the forest and immediately it got darker. Here, even in this strange light, the trees grew fuller and larger than anything he had seen before, their leaves and branches lacing above them into a canopy where barely any light got through. Tristian had a feeling that if he had walked on top of those branches, he could have done so with little difficulty, so tightly intertwined were they.
         "The thing I can't understand," Michelle suddenly interjected, as she tugged at her robe to keep it from becoming caught on an interfering twig, "is why we were let in, anyway. Sylvania had to basically threaten the doorway before it would let us in.'
         "It wasn't going to let us in," Johan said, remembering, "but when Sylvania said that Auburon had died, it seemed to change its mind."
         "Ah," the elf said, bowing its head briefly in an all too familiar gesture of sorrow. "So he is dead." Its voice held a small note of saddness. Their feet made vague crunchings and snappings as they picked their way through the undergrowth. The elf made no sound at all, not even seeming to look where it was going.
         "Did the dark ones slay him?" the elf asked them, and there was something in its eyes, something old and final and hard.
         "They did," Tristian answered, remembering that terrible moment. "I was there. His last act was to have Sylvania take us to the doorway so we could come here. But he didn't say why."
         "Indeed, because you would not have believed him," the elf replied and it wasn't clear who he was talking to, since he was facing forward. The forest was deep and dark and thick now, the air growing heavy, almost like a rain forest. "We have been here since before the fairies became aware. Auburon first descended here because he could feel the pulse of the forest and thought he might find kin. He did not, but he did find ones that he eventually called friend."
         "How long ago are we talking here?" Michelle asked.
         "Herenflas ruled when Auburon first descended," the elf stated, sounding for all intents and purposes like he had been there in that time. Staring into those almost alien eyes, Tristian could believe it. Immortality was not a thing that surprised him anymore, probably the only thing. That and teleportation, he was slowly getting used to everyone he knew seemingly being able to teleport except for him.
         "Oh my," Michelle muttered. "The true king. That . . . that was thousands of years ago." Slowly an expression of pure surprise spread over her face, as if a fact that she had overlooked was suddenly floating before her, yelling and waving.
         The elf gave a sort of shrug. "Perhaps. Time makes little difference to us. Events happen and we choose whether to react to them or not. But we cannot ignore things that are occuring now and so you are here and we are here. Some good may come of that, or it may not."
         "But what is down here?" Tristian asked, getting impatient. "Auburon sent us down here for an important reason but nobody seems willing to say what we might find here." He looked around, gesturing to encompass all that was around him. "All I've seen so far is just what I've seen up on the surface. There must be something special here."
         "This place is special only that the veil will be pulled back for you," the elf told Tristian and he got this weird feeling, as if something was unrolling before him, as if he was just walking in someone else's footsteps. As if everything he was doing was just an echo of an impossibly loud noise sounded centuries ago. "It will be special only for that, and that very fact makes it no more special than any other place."
         "His body was taken . . ." Michelle was murmuring, slowing down to the point where they were starting to lose her. Tristian stopped to let her catch up and he could see that she was barely paying any attention at all. "But that can't mean . . ."
         Suddenly she looked up and rushed past Tristian, hardly seeming to see anything around here. Grabbing the elf by the shoulder, she whirled it around. The slit eyes regarded her calmly, not seeming startled by her somewhat rash actions.
         "When was the last time Auburon came down here?" she asked eagerly, her face bright.
         "This place was sealed for all time when Herenflas passed on. That was the last time Auburon descended and the last time we saw him. The land was sealed even to him, and it has remained so until his death. His death was the trigger." The elf's voice grew strangely quiet. "Even then he knew, he knew he would not live to see it."
         "Herenflas' body . . . he took it down here with him, didn't he?" Michelle asked, her speech becoming quicker, her eyes bright. "That was the reason he came down here one last time, to hide the body and to keep others from trying to get it."
         "What?" Tristian asked, looking at Johan, who merely shrugged, not knowing what Michelle was talking about either. "What are you talking about?"
         The elf was the one who responded, although Michelle nodded at his speech, wanting to confirm its validity. "Upon the death of the king Herenflas, his body was taken by the fairies, though none knew of that. Auburon and Herenflas knew each other in the sense that monarchs are friends, and both knew of legends that spoke of the last days. Auburon knew that Herenflas would be needed again when no alternatives existed and so placed the body with us for safekeeping."
         "Where is it?" Michelle asked, her voice rising. "You have to take us there now!"
         "Easy," Tristian said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "He's been dead this long, he's not going to change-"
         "No, you don't understand!" Michelle nearly shouted, causing Tristian to wince as she whirled on him. "This might be what we need, what we've been sent down here before. Auburon knew! He knew that this was the last battle!"
         "Are you saying the king is supposed to rise and help us?" Tristian asked, not sure if he was supposed to believe that as fact. There were legends of such a thing on Earth, nearly every culture believed that a great leader would rise again to aid them in their time of darkest need but that rarely happened. Even Britain had expected King Arthur to return during World War Two but that had never happened (not as far as he knew at least). Maybe that hadn't been their darkest hour. And maybe this wasn't this land's darkest time either. But they sure felt close.
         "There are stories like that," Johan spoke up, "I used to hear them when I was a child but . . . we thought they were just stories."
         "But they're not and we're here, don't you see?" Michelle asked, grabbing Tristian's hands. Suddenly she seemed full of energy, as if the accumulated load of despair that had been piling on her had been thrown off, replaced with something brighter, better. "We have a chance, finally."
         They had been walking the entire time, up until a few moments ago and now Tristian realized the forest was thinning. There was no way of telling how far they had gone. In the tangled shadows he could see vague shapes moving, animals beyond his expectations, and the distant warped calls of things that nobody had ever given names to. The musty, cramped forest smell was beginning to dissipate, which was a blessing.
         Michelle was walking up ahead with the elf, talking energetically to it. Tristian was walking slightly behind, with Johan, who had been mostly quiet the entire time. Tristian kept forgetting the man had mostly been a simple craftsmen, never expecting to experience anything near the things he had been experiencing. And yet each new experience just drove home the fact that he had nobody to share it with back home. His entire family, dead, and even if they won this great big battle that apparently was coming up, it would still be a hollow victory for Johan.
         Still, that was no reason to ignore the man. "You know anything more about this king stuff?" Tristian asked the other man.
         Johan just shook his head slowly. "I didn't have access to the same books that Michelle did, obviously, so all I know is garbled by legend. I mean, we never knew where the king's body went, or who had taken it but we knew it had gone somewhere and he was supposed to come back when we needed him again." He shrugged, a dismissive gesture. "I really hope that's the case here. Still . . ." and he just left it at that.
         But Tristian noticed. "Something is still bothering you about this. Might as well say it."
         "Well . . ." Johan hesitated a second, and then leaned forward, his voice lowered. "The elves seem to have been talking to you mostly this entire time, like something is supposed to happen to you, or you're supposed to do something."
         Tristian realized that he had forgotten about that in the revelation that the true king might be here. Perhaps he had wanted to hope so much that all he had to do was just fight and then slip out when the battle was done. To know that people might be relying on him, that lives would be in the balance based on his decision. Once he would have done it with resignation but now the very thought made his chest tighten. Had he gotten so bad that even the very thought of responsibility in a matter like this frightened him?
         "I . . . thought that too, but that can't be right," Tristian replied, his voice also lowered. "After all I'm not even from around here. I can't use magic, or even feel it, I'm just someone passing through."
         "And yet you're connected to the Magents," Johan noted. "That has to count for something."
         "That just means my life is far more complicated than I'd like it to be," Tristian responded a bit grimly.
         Johan gave a small smile at that. "And yet you're here. You came with the Magents, even though you didn't need to. You've helped, even though we mean nothing to you. You risked your life when even the Magents weren't effective."
         "Nothing more than anyone else did," said Tristian, feeling his words ringing hollow. What did he believe in, if he didn't believe in his own actions? "Honestly, I just came here to get away from myself. Back home, there were . . . things I walked away from, things I couldn't face, and a sense of something that I wanted to recapture."
         "And have you?" Johan asked simply.
         "I don't think I'd even know anymore," Tristian replied somberly. "I've forgotten what it was even like anymore." And he paused and took a deep breath. "And after being here, faced with wonders I could never imagine from the awesome to the mundane, I have to start wondering, was it that sense of wonder I've been looking for, or something deeper . . ." and as he said that, something shifted out of the corner of his eye and he caught a flicker. A flicker of something red.
         "Oh no," he whispered, throwing himself forward even as he saw the streak of reddness blaze in the semidark of the forest, remembering what had happened before, remembering Auburon. The streak was going right for the elf, he could see that in the slowness of the time that wrapped around him. Even as the streak raced forward, Tristian could see other forms moving out of the trees. There was no guessing as to what they were.
         The world became a wall of blue suddenly and he shifted his position in mid air and came crashing to the ground right before he hit the shimmering blue. Michelle was visible in a blurred sense behind the shield, her hands raised. The elf was merely standing there and Tristian had a feeling he had known what was coming, and that he probably wouldn't have moved.
         Three more lasers slammed into the shield and the air was filled with the screeching whine of the weapons. Johan had thrown himself to the ground and was inching forward.
         "What are those things?" he yelled to Tristian and Tristian really wasn't sure how to explain. Technology didn't make the transition, the Agents had told him when he had first gotten here, and yet the Dark Riders were using their lasers and laser swords without any problems. What had they really meant when they said that, or had they just been outright lying? And for what reason? And what else were they lying about so far? He wished they were here to help, to answer questions, even to annoy him. Dark Riders weren't something he could fight along and he didn't want to. But he had no choice.
         Boots stomping on the soft undergrowth alerted him to the first attacked and he launched himself up from the ground even as the saw the Dark Rider going for his sword. They had kept them sheathed probably so as not to be noticed. Who knows how long they had been shadowing them? And if they were here, then what place was left for them not to invade? What place was safe from their influence?
         Grabbing the Dark Rider's arm he wrenched back as far as it would go, backhanding it across the face for good measure. It jerked to the side and tried to turn but he slammed both his hands up, knowing how fast he was moving, aware of his voice yelling for the rest of them to run, not sure if they were doing so. The Dark Rider's head went snapping back and Tristian heard a crunch. It hit the ground like a limp puppet. The sword. Get the sword and the fight might just be even.
         A laser raked across his shoulder, sending fire whistling down his arm. He bit back a scream and rolled to the opposite side, away from the fallen Dark Rider. His shoulder felt like it had been badly burned and it stung with every second that passed. Blood was pounding in his head, keeping time for him, counting out his last moments. He came up in a crouch, seeing the blue of Michelle's shield disappearing out of view. Five Dark Riders stepped from the trees and lasers chewed up the ground where he was. But he was already in motion.
         Running away. It was unthinkable but he had no other choice, there was no way he could fight Dark Riders without the sword. And yet he remembered days when he had done so without thinking, when he had hated to use the sword and had used whatever was at hand. Had he come to rely on the sword so much that it gave him an excuse to fail, that its absence meant that he wasn't the person he used to be. Wasn't he more than a single weapon and yet no different or better than anyone else. He didn't want to die but he didn't want his friends to die either. He wanted them to live to see their land freed, saved.
         The forest thinned and thinned again around, becoming more like the meadow that had been there when he entered. Except here the grass was yellowed, old and dry. It crackled under his feet. Behind him he could hear Dark Riders running, following him. Were they looking for the body of the true king as well, to stop them from reaching it and raising him? A piercing thought ran through him, that by running they might be leading the Dark Riders right to the king.
         His friends were up ahead, and down a hill slightly. Above them, he could increase his speed without trouble and soon felt the wind whistling past his ears. Occassionlly there was a flash of red by him but nothing had even come close so far. They were leading him, they had to be. They wanted to see where the king was and realized that these people knew the way.
         He was already shouting when he reached his friends. Michelle's shield was still up and had grown to envelop Johan in it as well. Running alongside of it, he screamed, "We have to go somewhere else! They want to find the king's body! We'll be leading them right to it."
         The sky was wide open and the grass was low. It whispered against their legs as they ran. A Dark Rider rose out of the grass like something unholy and Tristian didn't even pause in his stride, just leapt and kicked it right in the chest. He felt something buckle but didn't stop to see the results as he landed on the ground lightly and kept running. From what he could tell, the Dark Rider didn't get up.
         In the shield he could see the elf running effortlessly alongside Michelle and Johan, its slim form a blur. Its hand was on Michelle's arm and it was leading here, pointing to tell her where to go. He wanted to reach inside and shout again that they couldn't do that. Doing that was just what the Dark Riders wanted. But he couldn't divert any of them from their paths. It was all converging and he just didn't have enough power to stop it, to stop any of it from happening.
         What he was running to was a giant outcropping of rock, piled up as if by some insane giant. The front of it rose straight to the sky, about twice the height of a man and was smooth and featureless. As they drew closer Tristian could feel the power humming around it. This had to be the place.
         The laser fire had stopped at some point but nobody slowed down. Tristian cast a glance back to see the Dark Riders far away, not even racing anymore. They knew where they were going, there was no need to hurry. Not anymore.
         Tristian reached the rock first, but didn't go near it. Michelle came over to him, letting her shield drop, though keeping a vague flickering form dancing nearby, just in case.
         "We're here, I think," she said, her voice breathless.
         "But now what?" Johan asked. The elf said nothing just merely watched them all calmly with that unreadable face of his.
         "We get in," Michelle said, running her hand along the rock. Her hand glowed bright blue, but there were no seams along the rock to open. Biting her lip in frustration, she pushed back a sweat drenched strand of hair and examined the rock, getting down to one knee in an attempt to find something.
         "Tristian, look at this," Johan called and Tristian went over. Johan was bending over something huge and when Tristian saw what it was, he felt his eyes grow wide. It was a skeleton but gigantic, at least ten feet tall, the bones heavy and white. It was dressed in some primitive form of leather clothing, stitched crudely. There was a giant glistening sword in its hand, the fingerbones still trying to clutch the downed weapon. Tristian knew he'd hurt himself trying to lift something like that up, and then he'd be no use to anyone.
         "Tristian, I can't get in," Michelle yelled, her voice bordering on frantic. "I don't know how to get in."
         "Tristian," Johan asked and his voice seemed afraid, "was this the . . . guardian of this place? What happened to him?"
         "What everything must do," a dark dripping voice said to them and both men leapt to their feet. There were five Dark Riders standing there and others could be seen in the distance. "Fall before us." There was a glowing sword in its hand, in all their hands.
         "He thought to impede our progress," the Dark Rider said, and maybe it was a different one and maybe it wasn't. All their voices blended together in a smooth oilslick of evil. "And so we killed him."
         "But the guardian . . . that means . . ." Michelle said softly. "Wait, they haven't made it into the king's tomb yet though!" Her body was now glowing blue and she kept running her hands along the rock, trying to find some magic key to unlock the door.
         "No, it has so far resisted our efforts to get in," and Tristian found that hard to believe since the laser swords could cut through anything. But they hadn't killed them yet for some reason. "But this one here knows the way . . ." and the lead Dark Rider pointed at the elf.
         The elf stared back at the Dark Riders. "No, dark ones, sadly, I do not know the way. The way is closed to me and my people, as is it closed to all but certain ones. I can show how to get there, but I myself do not know the final step." There was something in the elf's voice, something that it wasn't saying. Tristian prepared himself for anything.
         "Then you will die then," the Dark Rider said casually but even as it did so the elf went and did the last thing Tristian expected it to do. Spinning smoothly it took a step toward Tristian and placed those nimble hands on his chest.
         Without a word, it shoved Tristian as hard as it could.
         Not expecting it, Tristian was immediately off balance. Flailing he stepped back, realizing that the rock was right behind him, knowing that he could fall against it, as embarressing as that would be.
         And then his back met the rock and he felt a tingling sensation and then nothing at all behind. Not able to see where he was going, he was only aware of falling backwards still.
         With a yell he toppled back into the rock itself, the last thing his eyes saw was the face of the elf, as passive as always, with one difference. The elf was smiling.
         Then darkness swallowed him for a second and he felt a general sense of timelessness before the world came rocketing back to him. He got a glimpse of a darkness filled ceiling before it all turned upside down and his back slammed into a hard rock floor. It knocked the breath out of him and he saw stars. Breathing heavily, he lay there for a second, running through what had just happened, trying to put it all together.
         Johan and Michelle. They were still out there. Getting back on his feet, he saw that the rock wall in front of him was featureless. Gently he pressed his hand against it and found that it was indeed solid rock. On the other side he could distantly hear the murmur of voices but couldn't make out or distinguish any of them.
         "Now what?" he asked himself, not sure what to do, he turned around. The room was dim, seemingly like every other place that he had been to lately. It didn't seem all that large. Most of the light came from candles placed in the nooks and crannies in the rock. There was a heavy, stale and old smell to the air. Weapons were laid out in racks in one corner of the room, while banners of some sort were draped on the walls. They didn't hold any familiar symbols.
         There was something not unlike an altar in the center of the room. An altar and something else. He started to go over to it, feeling drawn for some reason when a voice all too familiar stopped him.
         "Hello, Tristian," came the accented voice.
         Tristian spun on his feet to see a red robed figure casually sitting in a chair in the half darkness. Agent One smiled at him cheerfully.
         "I wish I could say you were late," the Agent said, even as Tristian tried to process this. He looked at an imaginary watch on his wrist, pulling his sleeve back to see it. "But alas, you're right on time."

* * * * *
         The news went out all over. The fires that had been plaguing the forest suddenly were gone, as if they had never existed. The trees were still blackened and burned and the fairies still seemed decimated but the fires were gone, sucked away by some unknown force.
         Looking out over the land from his position in the royal bedroom, Agent Two watched the fires vanish and grinned broadly.
         "What do you know, we might have a chance after all," was what he said. "It all depends on Tristian now, I guess. Hopefully he's been listening all these years."
         And, laughing softly, he prepared himself for what was coming next.